Att optimera samhället inför klimatförändringar
Sårbarhet och anpassning på dagordningen
This thesis examines the ways in which adaptation and vulnerability are framed in national and sectorial policy-documents dealing with expected societal impacts of climate change. By using theories of discourse and ideology, the analysis aims to find and understand important ideas and presuppositions that are explicitly or implicitly expressed in these documents in order to make possible and tangible the institutional production of policy within the potentially far-reaching problematique of climate change adaptation and vulnerability. The analysis shows that there are two main perspectives through which vulnerability and adaptation are framed; one focusing limits to societal robustness; and one contesting the institutional capacity to implement adaptations. The author understands these framings as complementarily optimizing preconceived social and economic relations, something that might, in fact, reduce the response capacity of people.