With the renewal of its Action Plan for Adaptation, the German Federal Government aims to further strengthen the country's climate resilience. To design the ensemble of various policy instruments as effectively as possible, the Federal Environment Agency has carried out an ex-ante assessment with the support of INFRAS.
Climate adaptation is a cross-cutting task that requires a wide range of measures. These include, for example, the unsealing of urban areas to reduce heat, the restoration of floodplains for flood protection, and new transport concepts to improve supply security during extreme weather events. The fourth Adaptation Action Plan of the German Federal Government currently includes over 180 measures to protect the population, infrastructure and natural resources from the impacts of climate change. The Climate Change and Adaptation Network, currently composed of 25 federal agencies and institutions, supports the Interministerial Working Group on Adaptation to Climate Change in shaping this action plan.
For the action plan to be effective, the many actors involved must coordinate well and the measures must be aligned. That is why the German Environment Agency decided not to evaluate the policy instruments after implementation as is typically done, but instead to assess them in advance with respect to effectiveness, costs, sustainability, and interactions. INFRAS and the German consultancy adelphi developed the methodology for this ex-ante evaluation in close collaboration with subject-matter experts from the federal agency network.
«Ex-ante assessments, such as those increasingly carried out by the Federal Environment Agency, are still the exception today. Yet they hold great potential for addressing complex policy challenges such as climate adaptation», says project lead Anik Kohli from INFRAS. « Assessing policies in advance allows for early identification of weaknesses, better financial planning, and fine-tuning of the policy mix. This helps reduce the risk of unpleasant surprises after implementation.»
Identify synergies, conflicting goals and side effects
INFRAS developed the assessment framework for the criteria of sustainability and interactions. The project team was able to build on the Strategic Impact Assessment — an established tool for evaluating the sustainability of policy instruments, previously developed and tested by INFRAS on behalf of the German Environment Agency.
From a sustainability perspective, the impact of a policy instrument is assessed across the three dimensions of sustainability: environmental, economic, and social. This allows for early identification of potential side effects in specific areas and for optimization of policy instruments. The interaction criterion reveals synergies and trade-offs between different policy measures and provides guidance on which should be implemented together and which should not.
Tool for simple and consistent evaluation
To simplify and standardise the assessment process for stakeholders within the federal agency network, INFRAS and its partner adelphi have developed an Excel-based tool. It enables the assessment of up to 40 policy instruments and provides a transparent and comprehensible basis for discussion. The network successfully applied the methodology and tool during the project and submitted a recommendation of thoroughly assessed and optimized policy instruments for the current action plan.
Further information
Further INFRAS projects on the topic
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