Influence of contextual and governance factors on vertical integration of urban adaptation strategies in NDCs

As a part of growing concern, several significant decisions have been accepted by world leaders beneath the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in the recent decades. In France, parties of the world came to a consent known as ‘Paris agreement’ to minimize the causes and effects of climate change in 12th December 2015 which has been ratified by enough member states within next year. The agreement with ‘common global target’ determined mitigation attributes to confine global temperature increase to 1.5 degree Celsius and develop the capacity to adapt climate change effects and become more resilient. Countries have devoted to support this global agenda through Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and review it in every five years. Along with mitigation measures, parties are intended to introduce adaptation strategies, plans, actions in response to climate change effects. However, within this global platform of opportunities, member states are promised to exchange knowledge, information, technology, skill and financial resources to implement NDC actions. The inclusion of adaptation strategies and prioritize are very perplexing because they are localized and contextual. Therefore, both in academic field and policy implication, it is important to explore the context that are instigating countries to adopt adaptation actions as well as assess the opportunities and challenges of integrating local actions vertically at the national level. To reduce the gap in this newly emerged academic field of NDCs, present research contributed by analyzing 52 NDCs which concentrated mainly in urban adaptation measures. The study identified the level of vertical integration of urban adaptations of the NDCs, evaluated the influence of contextual factors in integrating actions as well as assessed the drivers and constraints of the governance system in determining vertical integrations level by following both qualitative and quantitative study. The study reveals that among the three level of vertical integration, only13 are highly integrated while most of the NDCs (38) are moderately integrated. Income level, urbanization rate and vulnerability level as contextual factors have significant influence in determining vertical integration level of urban adaptations. The factors are also strongly correlated to each other as both income level and urbanization increase the level of vulnerability. However, governance factors play an essential role in integrating urban adaptions in NDCs. Study depicts that, countries with high level of vertical integration have better performance in governing issues such as information sharing between national and local level, participation of actors, collaboration between national and sub-national level, national and local adaptation plan, expressing about funding source and capacity etc. It is also mentionable that income level as a context significantly influences governance system as well as the vertical integration of urban adaptations of a country. As first submitted NDCs, the countries showed their commitments, devotion as much as possible through actions, strategies, and plan. Yet, there are information gaps in understanding the existing capacities and effort in implementation potentialities. Therefore, based on findings few guidelines have been provided in conclusion to make NDCs more robust, effective and understandable for the next review. It is expected that the goal of exchanging experience, knowledge and sharing capacity, resources within NDCs will be smoother and effective by following the guidelines.