Why popular support tools on climate change adaptation have difficulties in reaching local policy-makers: Qualitative insights from the UK and Germany

Policy support for climate change adaptation has grown rapidly and respective tools (such as online guides and handbooks) have been documented and categorized repeatedly in recent years. Nevertheless, we still know little about how relevant their target groups find them for their work. We aim to address this gap with case studies on two well-known support tools: the Adaptation Wizard from the UK and the Klimalotse from Germany. After showing how adaptation support tools have spread in recent years, we analyze qualitatively how relevant regional and local policy-makers concerned with adaptation find the two tools. One of our main findings is the following discrepancy: while both tools offer support in developing and implementing comprehensive adaptation plans, local policy-makers find this irrelevant and expect support in coping with imminent climate change impacts, for example, by single adaptation measures. Consequently, the local policy-makers we interviewed hardly use the two tools but seek more specific support, in particular regarding vulnerability and cost-benefit assessments. We conclude that policy support tools lack relevance when their well-intended attempt to enlighten target groups is too remote from what the latter expect.