Climate adaptation in Swedish municipalities: challenging the current responsibility distribution

Climate change creates increasing challenges for European municipalities as they not only need to reduce carbon emissions but also need to adapt local societies to, among other things, an increased number and severity of floodings. Municipalities thus need to act but might lack the mandate to do so. In Sweden, spatial planning is devolved, providing municipalities with significant influence over the physical planning and use of land and water. Although, municipalities must consider climate adaptation when planning new areas, there are no legal requirements for them to adapt pre-existing built or rural areas to climate change. Legislation instead points out property owners as the main holders of responsibility for climate adaptation of already built areas. Through interviews we have studied how civil servant working with climate adaptation in six Swedish municipalities think about and act on the distribution of responsibility between the municipality and property owners. In many cases, property owners lack the ability to adapt their properties, as this requires land. In densely built urban areas such land might be scarce. The civil servants, in many cases, take on a larger responsibility than they are legally mandated to do, as they see the current responsibility distribution to lead to inefficient adaptation measures. They take on responsibility based on their ability to do so. However, at the same time, municipalities find themselves limited by legislation and the siloed municipal organization in how they can organize and finance adaptation work and in what adaptation measures they can implement. To circumvent this situation, they try to build ability. In doing so, and in taking on responsibility to ensure an efficient climate adaptation, they not only question the current distribution of responsibility but also the current legislation. The actions that municipalities take to adapt societies, therefore, can be seen as also changing climate adaptation governance in the Swedish context.