Over the past decade, climate adaptation has evolved significantly. What began largely as efforts to manage immediate climate risks is increasingly becoming a broader agenda to strengthen long-term resilience and shape sustainable development.

Across the RegionsAdapt network, this evolution can be seen through three complementary depths of adaptation:

• Incremental adaptation strengthens existing systems to manage current vulnerabilities through improved standards, preparedness, and operational adjustments. It remains essential, but must be robust under future climate conditions.
• Systemic adaptation integrates climate risk across sectors and governance levels. It connects land use, infrastructure, ecosystems, finance, and social systems, and addresses cross-sector dependencies. It reduces the risk of maladaptation and policy incoherence.
• Transformational adaptation becomes necessary when incremental improvements are insufficient. It reshapes development pathways, governance arrangements, economic models, and spatial planning systems to address structural drivers of vulnerability.

These approaches are not mutually exclusive. In practice, regional governments often combine actions across all three, responding to immediate challenges while building long-term resilience.

Adaptation is not only about reducing climate risks, it is also about ensuring that resilience is built fairly. As climate impacts intensify, regional governments are increasingly recognising that who benefits, who participates, and who is left behind are central questions for effective adaptation.

The Regions4 Just Resilience Framework provides a shared foundation for integrating justice into adaptation. It highlights five interconnected dimensions that help regional governments design adaptation policies that are not only effective, but also equitable and inclusive:

• Equity and inclusion;
• Participatory governance;
• Fair distribution of resources;
• Intergenerational responsibility;
• Ecological, economic, and social balance.

Applying these principles helps ensure that adaptation reduces climate risks while strengthening social cohesion, legitimacy and long-term resilience.

Adaptation is increasingly guided by global agreements and national frameworks, yet it is ultimately realised in territories. The challenge lies in translating global ambition into place-based action that reflects local realities and priorities.

International frameworks such as SDG 13, national adaptation plan guidance, and  Global Goal on Adaptation frameworks are shaping expectations around effective adaptation, emphasising iterative planning, science-based decision-making, inclusion, and multilevel governance.

At the same time, the Locally Led Adaptation Principles have helped establish a shared understanding of what effective adaptation looks like at the community level, emphasising local leadership, equity and context-specific solutions.

The Paris Agreement itself recognises that action from all levels of government, not just national ones, is essential to reaching these goals — a principle now reinforced by initiatives such as CHAMP (the Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships), through which over 70 national governments have committed to working more closely with their states, regions and cities on climate planning and finance. RegionsAdapt itself is recognised within this global architecture, as part of the multilevel governance group under the UN’s Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action, alongside CHAMP and other leading city and region networks.

The RegionsAdapt Core Principles build on these foundations by articulating what effective adaptation means at the regional scale.

They reflect the unique governance role of states, provinces and regions, coordinating across municipalities and sectors, aligning territorial action with national strategies, and translating global ambition into coherent, place-based implementation.

Together, these principles provide a practical framework for regional governments to strengthen resilience while contributing to national and international adaptation goals.