Opportunities to integrate climate change adaptation and mitigation across strategic, adaptive and transformative pathways

Anita Lazurko , Jay Marisca Gietzelt, Eva Loerke, Anna Victoria Rohrer, Kasper Kok, Robert Dunford-Brown, Gabriel Bachner, José Benedicto-Royuela, Manuel Bertomeu, Silvia Coelho, Joana Ferreira, Christina Fischer, Silvestre García de Jalón, Barbara Goličnik Marušić, Lokendra Karki, Sterre Koops, Valeria Moncada-Dávila, Juan L Pérez-Camaño, Sergeja Praper Gulič, Tim G Reichenau, Roberto San Jose

Calls to integrate climate change adaptation and mitigation promote synergistic action. However, narrow, intervention- or sector-specific perspectives obscure complexities shaping how these agendas are operationalised in practice. This paper explores opportunities for integration from a systemic perspective, viewing climate resilient futures as emerging from diverse changes across sectors, scales, societal domains and logics of change. We co-created strategic, adaptive and transformative climate resilient pathways combining options across sectors and societal domains in five European case studies. Our mixed methods approach evaluated these pathways to identify integration opportunities. We show that the greatest opportunities lie in cross-sectoral actions and transformative logics, addressing systemic change in institutional, economic and cultural paradigms. Nature-based solutions enhance climate resilience while sequestering carbon. Additionally, mitigation measures improving community infrastructure and democratising energy systems generate adaptation co-benefits by strengthening social and human capital. These findings underscore the value of systemic approaches to advance integrated and ambitious climate action.