Laws and Local Norms in Climate Change Adaptation: Experiences from Sweden, Australia and Colombia

Keynote presentation

Beyond Rising Tides: Reimagining Pacific Islands' Climate Resilience Through Land and Identity

Rising sea levels threaten Pacific islands, but typical climate change stories focus too narrowly on water as the destroyer while ignoring the land's importance. This talk examines how island communities connect with their land – not just physically, but culturally and spiritually. Drawing from research in Pacific and Indian Ocean islands, I'll show how land provides identity, livelihood, and adaptation possibilities that may allow islanders to remain in their homes despite climate challenges.

Roundtable discussion

Governing the Climate Gap: exploring the role of laws and institutions in Climate Change Adaptation: experiences from around the world

Climate adaptation unfolds across a fragmented legal landscape—where formal law meets soft norms, and global goals collide with local realities (cultural and spiritual). This roundtable brings together cases from Australia,  Sweden, and Colombia to explore how legal epistemologies, legal pluralism, and multilevel governance shape climate responses from below. Through case studies and critical dialogue, we’ll unpack how communities, institutions, and informal actors navigate the uncertain legality of adaptation—revealing the promises and pitfalls of governing in the climate gap.

Guiding question: How do global and national climate adaptation goals align—or clash—with local norms, institutions, and lived experiences, and what does this reveal about the governance gaps shaping vulnerability and resilience?

Dr Sergio Jarillo is an interdisciplinary socio-legal scientist and Australian Research Council Research Fellow in the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (SGEAS) at The University of Melbourne. He has a background in Social Anthropology and over sixteen years of experience conducting in-depth field-based research on social change and the human dimensions of climate change in Oceania (Papua New Guinea, Australia and the Marshall Islands), the Indian Ocean (Maldives) and Africa (Mozambique). Sergio uses ethnographic methods to study the social roots of climate change vulnerability and the environmental and psycho-cultural elements that enable adaptation. He has an LLB from the Universidad Autnoma de Madrid (Spain), a BA in Art History and Museum Studies from the Universit degli Studi di Urbino (Italy), as well as an MPhil and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. He has previously held appointments at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, Columbia University, the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Using participatory approaches, Sergio seeks to advance bottom-up framings of climate change adaptation that can benefit communities, including Community-based Adaptation (CBA), Traditional Environmental Knowledge (TEK), Nature-based Solutions (NbS) and Ecosystems-based Adaptation (EbA).