Federal Agencies Incorporate Duke Expertise to Measure Climate Adaptation Efforts

The federal government in the United States is increasingly taking action to adapt to the growing impacts of climate change. But how do we know what’s working?

A group of Duke University experts partnered with the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) to develop a framework for assessing progress toward goals laid out in agencies’ 2024–2027 climate adaptation plans.

“Developing strategies and plans to combat the growing impacts of climate change can only take us so far,” said Elizabeth Losos, executive in residence at Duke’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability. “The success of resiliency efforts depends on evaluating the effectiveness of each project and strategy to optimize what works and readjust what doesn’t. Our recent work with CEQ is just one example of how Duke is helping to ensure that federal efforts have real impact.”

The climate adaptation plans have their roots in a January 2021 executive order that detailed a “whole-of-government” approach for tackling climate change in the United States and abroad. Later that year, federal agencies released initial plans that evaluated exposure to their facilities, operations and programs from climate-related risks—anything that could impair the agency’s ability to achieve its mission. They then outlined strategies for adapting and building resilience to these risks.

The plans span the vast federal landscape—from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Transportation, from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Smithsonian Institution. Because each agency operates in a unique way, they need a shared framework to measure the progress and impact of their plans across the government.

In 2022, the Resilience Roadmap—a nonpartisan, independent project hosted by Duke’s Nicholas Institute—coordinated a team of experts to provide advice to an interagency working group focused on climate adaptation and sustainability. The team developed a report that provides a common approach to developing key performance indicators for climate change adaptation and resilience planning.

The Resilience Roadmap, CEQ and The Pew Charitable Trusts later co-hosted a series of workshops with climate adaptation leaders from a diverse group of federal agencies. Discussions primarily focused on process-related indicators that could be widely adopted to inform planning, resource allocation and operationalization. The workshops also made an initial effort to identify outcome-based indicators that could be applied to every agency—a more complex task given the wide range of missions that would need to be covered.

In the end, the working group settled on five process-related indicators—largely adapted from the Resilience Roadmap report—and a corresponding set of metrics.

“The process metrics developed for the federal climate adaptation plans mark a huge step forward in how we are starting to evaluate our adaptation efforts across federal agencies,” said Lori Cary-Kothera, former director of climate adaptation and resilience at CEQ and now operation manager at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office for Coastal Management. “The partnership and knowledge on resilience metrics from the Duke team provided was essential in helping develop the initial federal framework.”

A White House fact sheet notes that the climate adaptation plans advance the National Climate Resilience Framework, which establishes a vision for a climate-resilient nation and guidance for resilience-related activities and investments by the federal government and its partners. If fully implemented, the plans could significantly bolster those efforts. The federal government employs more than 4 million people, owns more than 300,000 buildings, manages 640 million acres of public land and spends $700 billion each year on goods and services.

The framework for evaluating the plans has the potential for far-reaching impact. While the indicators and metrics were developed for federal agencies, they can be applied more broadly.

“The federal government has an opportunity to set a standard for state and local planners and practitioners to follow,” Losos said. “By working from a similar framework, the United States can better align adaptation and resilience priorities down to the community level while making it easier for the public to track progress.”