Wyss Academy for Nature

Ecosystem restoration is an important means to address global sustainability challenges. However, scientific and policy discourse often overlooks the social processes that influence the equity and effectiveness of restoration interventions. In the present article, we outline how social processes that are critical to restoration equity and effectiveness can be better incorporated in restoration science and policy. Drawing from existing case studies, we show how projects that align with local people's preferences and are implemented through inclusive governance are more likely to lead to improved social, ecological, and environmental outcomes. To underscore the importance of social considerations in restoration, we overlay existing global restoration priority maps, population, and the Human Development Index (HDI) to show that approximately 1.4 billion people, disproportionately belonging to groups with low HDI, live in areas identified by previous studies as being of high restoration priority. We conclude with five action points for science and policy to promote equity-centered restoration.

Land acquisitions are transforming land-use systems globally, and their characteristics and impacts on human well-being have been extensively analysed through local case studies and regional or global inventories. However, national-level analysis that is crucial for national policy on sustainable agricultural investments and land use is still lacking. This paper conducts an archetype analysis of a unique dataset on land concessions in Lao PDR to provide a national-scale assessment of the impacts of land acquisitions on human well-being in 294 affected villages. The results show that land acquisitions influence human well-being through 18 distinct pathways. These pathways describe how some land acquisitions enhance or maintain well-being, while others elicit adverse impacts or trade-offs between well-being dimensions, particularly food security, income, and livelihood resilience. They further reveal five archetypical processes that mediate the effects of land acquisitions on well-being through: (i) shifting access to land and natural resources; (ii) commercialization of agriculture; (iii) availability of development opportunities; (iv) environmental impacts; and (v) employment opportunities within and outside land acquisitions. These processes affect well-being by shaping livelihood portfolios and dependence on natural resources. The majority of land acquisitions trigger trade-offs or adverse impacts on well-being. The small number of villages where well-being increased despite the presence of land acquisitions were mainly shaped by narrow and rigid preconditions. The archetypical processes and the explanatory factors suggest that it is imperative to protect smallholders’ land-use rights and to avoid large-scale deals, as their adverse impacts outweigh opportunities and are more severe than the impacts of small-scale acquisitions. Employment opportunities may provide additional cash income but should not be exclusively relied upon.

Heatwaves have been the deadliest weather extreme events in Europe in the last decades. People living in cities are especially prone to such events due to the urban heat island (UHI) effect which increases the heat stress in urban surroundings especially during calm, steady, and radiation intensive synoptic situations. Since official measurement stations in cities are scarce, studies on spatial patterns of UHIs often rely on satellite data, hobby meteorologists' data, or on model outputs. Additionally, analyses of spatial UHI patterns using point-based measurements need adequate and cost-effective methods for spatial interpolation. In this study, air temperature data retrieved by 60 low cost measurement devices (LCD) are used to model the spatial pattern of the UHI with a land use regression (LUR) approach in Bern, Switzerland. For this purpose, 14 spatial variables with different buffer radii were calculated to evaluate their effect on the UHI and to interpolate the air temperature data. As a result, three models covering three different heatwaves at nighttime were developed. Given good model performance throughout the different scenarios, the here presented study demonstrates the successful interpolation of low cost temperature data by LUR modelling based on publicly accessible spatial information within a city.

Growing demand for agricultural commodities like rubber or oil palm is causing rapid change in Southeast Asia's biodiversity-rich forested landscapes. This change is particularly pronounced in Myanmar, whose economy is developing at great speed after the end of decades-long economic and political isolation and armed conflicts. Interventions are needed to ensure that development is sustainable. Designing successful interventions requires spatially explicit knowledge of recent landscape changes. To provide such knowledge, we applied a landscape mosaic approach and analysed land system change in Tanintharyi Region in southern Myanmar between 2002 and 2016. Our findings show that nearly half of the study region experienced degradation of the vegetation cover, intensification of agricultural use, or a combination of both. Although intact forest was still the prevailing vegetation cover of land systems in Tanintharyi Region in 2016, it had suffered from degradation in wide parts of the region. Land systems without or with only extensive agricultural use in 2002 had become dominated by smallholders' shifting cultivation systems and permanent betel nut gardens and paddy rice fields by 2016. Elsewhere, smallholder dominated land systems were intensified through the expansion of oil palm and rubber plantations, pointing to potential displacement effects. The land system maps offer a sound basis for planning interventions to slow the degradation of biodiversity-rich forests and support smallholder farmers in coping with the fast-paced expansion of commercial cash crop plantations and its social and environmental impacts. Sustainable development in this global biodiversity hotspot requires careful land use planning to support nature and people, along with continued efforts for peace-building.

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is an extinction risk assessment tool that has guided species conservation over the last five decades. However, as wildlife scientists and conservationists, we argue that its influence on the global conservation agenda can hinder effective species conservation efforts. Here, we review the limitations of the Red List and its misuse in priority setting, which can overlook local and regional contexts. This can result in improper allocation of conservation resources, especially in the Global South, where financial resources are limited. In particular, funds directed towards red-listed species may fail to address a broader range of conservation priorities. We also contend that extinction risk is insufficient for guiding conservation efforts and recommend broadening conservation planning and decision-making beyond reliance on the Red List. Thus, for a more inclusive and decentralized approach, we summarize guidelines for guiding species conservation at appropriate ecological, spatial, and taxonomic scales. Finally, we encourage more collaborative efforts and stakeholder engagement for the setting of conservation priorities and efficient funding allocation.

Taking advantage of a large ensemble of Convection Permitting-Regional Climate Models on a pan-Alpine domain and of an object-oriented dedicated analysis, this study aims to investigate future changes in the high-impact fall Mediterranean Heavy Precipitation Events at high warming levels. We identify a robust multi-model agreement for an increased frequency from central Italy to the northern Balkans combined with a substantial extension of the affected areas, a dominant influence of the driving Global Climate Models for projecting changes in the frequency, an increase in intensity, area, volume and severity over the French Mediterranean. However, large quantitative uncertainties persist despite the use of convection-permitting models, with no clear agreement in frequency changes over southeastern France and a large range of plausible changes in events’ properties, including for the most intense events. Model diversity and international coordination are still needed to provide policy-relevant climate information regarding precipitation extremes.

Tropical forests support immense biodiversity and provide essential ecosystem services for billions of people. Despite this value, tropical deforestation continues at a high rate. Emerging evidence suggests that elections can play an important role in shaping deforestation, for instance by incentivising politicians to allow increased utilisation of forests in return for political support. Nevertheless, the role of elections as driver of deforestation has not yet been comprehensively tested at broad geographic scales. Here, we created an annual database from 2001 to 2018 on political elections and forest loss for 55 tropical nations and modelled the effect of elections on deforestation. In total, 1.5 million km2 of forest was lost during this time period, especially in the Amazon, the Congo Basin and in Southeast Asia. The annual rate of deforestation increased in 37 (67 %) of the analysed countries. Deforestation was significantly lower in years with uncompetitive lower chamber elections compared to competitive election years (i.e. when the opposition can participate in elections and has a legitimate chance to gain governmental power). Our results show a pervasive loss of tropical forests and suggest that competitive elections can be potential drivers of deforestation. Future analyses at higher resolution (intra-annual deforestation and sub-national governance) and simultaneous collection of data on additional mechanisms (legislative changes, financial investments, and binding term limits) will likely provide additional insights into the impacts of elections. We therefore recommend that organisations monitoring election transparency and fairness should also monitor environmental impacts such as forest loss, habitat destruction and resource exploitation.

Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS) are prominent governance instruments that define and verify sustainable agricultural land use at farm and supply chain levels. However, agricultural production can prompt spillover dynamics with implications for sustainability that go beyond these scales, e.g., through runoff of chemical inputs or long-distance migrant worker flows. Scientific evidence on the governance of spillovers through VSS is, however, limited. This study investigates the extent to which VSS regulate a set of 21 environmental and socio-economic spillovers of agricultural land use. To this end, we assessed the spillover coverage in 100 sustainability standards. We find that VSS have a clear tendency to cover environmental spillovers more extensively than socio-economic spillovers. Further, we show how spillover coverage differs across varying types of standard-setting organizations and VSS verification mechanisms. Finally, we discuss the role and limitations that VSS can have in addressing the revealed gaps.

Identifying strategies that offer co-benefits for biodiversity protection, forest restoration and human well-being are important for successful conservation outcomes. In this study, we identified opportunities where forest restoration and rehabilitation programs in Colombia also align with priority areas for the conservation of Neotropical migratory birds. We used citizen science eBird-based abundance estimates to define regions with the highest richness of Neotropical migratory birds of conservation concern at montane elevations in Colombia and aligned these high richness areas with domestic initiatives for forest protection (Forest Areas), restoration (Restoration Areas) and rehabilitation (Rehabilitation Areas). We quantified the location and amounts of these three areas as well as the type of land protection and designation within them, specifically, National Protected Areas, Indigenous Reserves, Afro-descendent territories, and regions affected by poverty and violence that are prioritized for rural development by the Colombian government in Post-conflict Territorially Focused Development Programs (PDET). Almost half of Forest Areas overlapped with PDETs where goals for economic development present a risk of forest loss if not done sustainably. There was a 20% overlap between Forest Areas and Afro-descendant territories and indigenous reserves; most of this overlap was outside of established protected areas thus presenting an opportunity for community forest conservation that benefits migratory birds. We found an alignment of less than 6% between migrant bird focal areas and the priority Restoration and Rehabilitation Areas identified by the Colombian National Restoration Plan indicating less opportunity for these programs to simultaneously benefit Neotropical migrant species. Our approach highlights that timely and efficient conservation of declining migrants depends on identifying the regions and strategies that incorporate local communities as part of the solution to forest loss and degradation in Colombia.

Human pressures such as hunting and habitat destruction can generate a deep fear in animals and this fear can influence their diel activity patterns and use of space. However, whether these behavioural responses to human pressure are consistent among key functional groups has been poorly studied. For example, while mammal species tend to become more nocturnal in areas with high human pressure, it is unclear if co-occurring birds display similar or opposite patterns. Here we used information from camera trapping (367 camera stations and 16,939 camera/days) along a gradient of human pressure in the Colombian Llanos to assess diel activity changes in understory birds and mammals. We found that diel activity significantly changed with higher human pressure for 45% of the birds (five species) and 36% of the mammals (five species) assessed, with four of five birds becoming more diurnal and all five mammals becoming more nocturnal. The average increase in nocturnality for the mammals was 11.3% while the average increase in diurnality for the birds was 7%. There was high variation in body size and dietary guild within impacted species, and only some were directly persecuted or hunted, suggesting that there are different pathways through which human pressure can affect vertebrates’ activity patterns. The contrasting behavioural responses to humans among vertebrate functional groups has significant repercussions for the fields of community ecology, including intraguild predation and competition, and should be a significant ecosystem-level conservation consideration.

Throughout the last centuries, European climate changed substantially, which affected the potential to plant and grow crops. These changes happened not just over time but also had a spatial dimension. Yet, despite large climatic fluctuations, quantitative historical studies typically rely on static measures for agricultural suitability due to the non-availability of time-varying indices. Relying on recent advances in paleoclimatology, we bridge this gap by constructing a spatio-temporal measure for agricultural suitability across Europe for a period of 500 years. Our gridded index has a 0.5° resolution and is available at a yearly level. It relies on a simple surface energy and water balance model, focusing only on so-called exogenous geographic and climatic features. Our index captures not just long-term trends, such as the Little Ice Age, but also short-term climatic shocks. It will empower researchers to explore the interplay between climatic fluctuations and Europe's agricultural landscape, analyze human responses at a local and regional scale, and foster a deeper understanding of the region's historical dynamics.

In many transdisciplinary research settings, a lack of attention to the values underpinning project aims can inhibit stakeholder engagement and ultimately slow or undermine project outcomes. As a research collective (The Careoperative), we have developed a set of four shared values through a facilitated visioning process, as central to the way we work together: care, reflexivity, inclusivity, and collectivity. In this paper, we explore the implications of a values-centered approach to collaboration in food system transformation research. The paper presents two cases that illustrate how researchers might approach centering values in practice. Where much research on food system transformation focuses on values of food system stakeholders, we contribute insights into the values of researchers in such transdisciplinary endeavors. Specifically, we argue that researchers working on sustainability transformations need to be better prepared to engage in such reflections and aspire to embody values aligned with the transformations they seek to research.

Abstract In a field experiment among 9,823 customers of the Namibian water utility, we implement interventions to reduce nonpayments. The interventions are based on diagnostic surveys to identify key obstacles to payments. They address informational frictions and apply psychological commitment techniques to narrow the gap between customers’ willingness to pay and actual payments. Initially, payments increase by 29% to 55%, making the interventions highly cost-effective. Removing informational frictions has a lasting impact, but the commitment techniques produce only short-term effects. We demonstrate the effectiveness and limitations of behavioral interventions in settings where heavy-handed tools (e.g., disconnecting nonpayers) are difficult to implement.

Data sources and scripts List of all data sources and script used for the manuscript entitled "Reduced summer water availability in the Tien Shan due to glacier wastage" In this folder/document, you will find: 1) A list of all the data sources used for glacier modeling and the creation of the hybrid product with results from ISIMIP3b. 2) Scripts required for glacier modelling, covering processes from surface mass balance to ice dynamics. Please note that the current version of the GloGEM code is provided as is (without technical support). Comprehensive documentation is currently in preparation, together with the release of an open-source version on GitHub. 3) The codes used to process the results and generate the hybrid product of GloGEM(flow) and ISIMIP. 1) Data used in the models Datasets required for Glacier Modelling: · Climatic data reanalysis: https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/dataset/reanalysis-era5-pressure-levels-monthly-means?tab=form · Climatic data future (GCMs): https://aims2.llnl.gov/search/cmip6 · Glacier outlines from RGIv6: https://www.glims.org/RGI/rgi60_dl.html · DEM data of SRTM: https://dwtkns.com/srtm30m/ · Ice thickness data from the consensus estimate: https://www.research-collection.ethz.ch/handle/20.500.11850/315707 (based on https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0300-3) · Geodetic mass balances: https://doi.org/10.6096/13 (based on https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03436-z) · Debris thickness and coverage: https://nsidc.org/data/hma_dte/versions/1 (based on https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020GL091311) Results of the Global Hydrological Models in ISIMIP · All the results (discharge, total runoff, potential total water withdrawal) produced from the Global Hydrological Models in ISIMIP can be directly downloaded from: https://data.isimip.org/ - ISIMIP3a (Observed climate): https://data.isimip.org/search/tree/ISIMIP3a/ - ISIMIP3b (GCM climate): https://data.isimip.org/search/tree/ISIMIP3b/ Hydrological basins and discharge data · The hydrological basins were downloaded from: https://www.hydrosheds.org/products/hydrobasins · The basin outlines were subsequently slightly modified in QGIS, and they can be provided on further request. · The discharge measurements used for the comparison in Fig. 4 are obtained or digitised from - Marti et al. (2023): Marti, B., Yakovlev, A., Karger, D.N., Ragettli, S., Zhumabaev, A., Wakil, W.A. and Siegfried, T.: CA-discharge: Geo-Located Discharge Time Series for Mountainous Rivers in Central Asia. Scientific Data, 10, 579, https://www.doi.org/10.1038/s41597-023-02474-8, 2023 - Zhang et al. (2020): Zhang, Q., Chen, Y., Li, Z., Fang, G., Xiang, Y., Li, Y. and Ji, H.: Recent changes in water discharge in snow and glacier melt-dominated rivers in the Tienshan Mountains, central Asia. Remote Sensing, 12(17), 2704, https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12172704, 2020 - Krysanova et al. (2015): Krysanova, V., Wortmann, M., Bolch, T., Merz, B., Duethmann, D., Walter, J., Huang, S., Tong, J., Buda, S. and Kundzewicz, Z.W.: Analysis of current trends in climate parameters, river discharge and glaciers in the Aksu River basin (Central Asia). Hydrological Sciences Journal, 60(4), 566-590, https://www.doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2014.925559, 2015 2) Modelling scripts (.zip file) Codes for Glacier Modelling (please note that we are currently working on a open-source version of GloGEM) · The provided .pro scripts (IDL) in the subfolder “GloGEM” are used to model the mass balance of the glaciers (GloGEM). - input.pro: Used to prepare the input and the settings to run GloGEM. - glogem.pro: Running GloGEM. - More information on how to run GloGEM can be requested to Matthias Huss, co-author of the study. · The provided .m scripts (Matlab) in the subfolder “GloGEMflow” are used to model the dynamics of the glaciers (GloGEMflow). - main.m: Starting GloGEMflow. This script calls all other subroutines. - All subroutines in the folder are started subsequently (different functions). - More information on how to run GloGEMflow can be requested to Lander Van Tricht · Both sub-models are coupled offline. This means that the results of GloGEM are read in into GloGEMflow. 3) Processing scripts (.zip file) Codes for processing the results and generating the hybrid product of the GloGEMflow and ISIMIP · The provided .m scripts (Matlab) are used to process the results, generate the hybrid product of GloGEMflow and ISIMIP and create the main figures. - A.nr.name.m: All the scripts starting with A are used to process and plot the ice volume evolution. - B.nr.name.m: All the scripts starting with B are used to process and plot the glacier runoff evolution. - C.nr.name.m: All the scripts starting with C are used to generate and plot the merged product. - discharge_comparison.m: Script used to compare the runoff with discharge observations. - The merging of the GloGEMflow results and the ISIMIP results is done offline. The data of ISIMIP is read in into the processing scripts in which they are merged with GloGEMflow.

Abstract Biodiversity loss is a systemic crisis produced by tightly coupled ecological, social, and economic processes. Yet, global biodiversity governance under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has largely operated through technocratic policy pipelines, including discrete targets, linear implementation logics, and the assumption that scaling interventions will yield systemic change. The Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) seeks to break with this pattern by articulating a whole-of-system governance architecture spanning both government and society. This paper examines how and why, despite this ambition, early implementation is reproducing familiar forms of fragmentation and selective action. Drawing on computational text-as-data analysis and network analysis, I analyze 3,417 national biodiversity targets and 718 biodiversity pledges submitted by 1,086 state, sub-national, private, and civil-society actors under the CBD. The analysis shows that implementation is shaped by stable belief systems and dominant policy narratives that privilege biophysical conservation targets while marginalizing enabling conditions understood as governance capacities required to address indirect and underlying drivers of biodiversity loss. These capacities cluster around four interrelated domains. Discursive capacities to problematize indirect drivers and articulate transformative narratives remain weak, leading to convergence around “safe” conservation themes. Institutional capacities for cross-sectoral coordination, policy mainstreaming, and regulatory and incentive reform are underdeveloped, limiting the translation of ambition into structural change. Resource capacities, particularly financial and administrative capacities, are unevenly mobilized and allocated, with biodiversity finance disproportionately directed toward countries signaling ambition or reflecting historical power asymmetries rather than those facing the greatest ecological pressure and governance constraints. Finally, action capacities, including participatory, implementation, and adaptive learning capacities, are constrained, resulting in weak coupling between problem, policy, and political streams and systematic narrative misalignments across actor groups. Together, these findings demonstrate how technocratic policy logics persist even within governance frameworks explicitly designed to be transformative. The paper contributes to policy process research by showing how computational text-as-data and network analysis methods can be used to empirically diagnose discursive, institutional, resource, and action-related capacity gaps in large-scale environmental governance, and by identifying the conditions under which whole-of-system approaches risk reproducing business-as-usual implementation dynamics. --------- This presentation is part of the session “Beyond Technocratic Pipelines: Problems-in-Solutions in Environmental Policy Processes” at the Conference on Policy Processes Research, Bern, Switzerland. The session is convened by Dr. Van Thi Hai Nguyen, with co-conveners Julie Zähringer, Stefano Jud, Mialy Rann, Fernando Fernandez, and Quynh Nguyen. Contact: Dr. Van Thi Hai Nguyen (van.hai.nguyen@wyssacademy.org / thi.nguyen@unibe.ch)

Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework aims to increase global protected and conserved area coverage to at least 30% by 2030. The impact on people, whether positive or negative, will depend on the social context of additional areas and how they are governed and managed. Here, we show that Target 3 could affect large and socially diverse populations under different implementation scenarios. Nearly half the human population lives within 10 km of areas included in a scenario maximising biodiversity representation. Four percent live near areas included in an Indigenous and traditional territories-based scenario, including many in areas with low Human Development Index scores (74%) and high participation in wild harvesting (91%). A scenario prioritising nature's contributions to people is intermediate on all measures. Our results demonstrate that Target 3 is a highly ambitious social as well as ecological target, requiring an equally ambitious commitment to development funding and support for local residents.

This paper undertakes an analysis of deforestation in the Amazon area using a pathways-based approach to sustainability. We ground the analysis primarily in the sustainability transitions literature but also draw a bridge with socio-ecological concepts which helps us to understand the nature of transitions in this context. The concept of a deforestation system is developed by examining the interplay of infrastructure, technologies, narratives, and institutions. Drawing on a literature review and an in-depth case study of Puerto Maldonado in Madre de Dios, Peru, the paper identifies three pathways for addressing deforestation: optimisation, natural capital, and regenerative change. We suggest that while the optimisation pathway provides partial solutions through mitigation and compensation strategies, it often reinforces extractivist logics. The study also underscores the limitations of natural capital frameworks, which tend to rely on centralised governance and market-based instruments while lacking broader social engagement. In contrast, our findings emphasise the potential of regenerative strategies rooted in local agency, community-led experimentation, and context-sensitive institutional arrangements. The paper contributes to ongoing debates on biodiversity governance by illustrating how the spatial and long-term dynamics of deforestation interact, and why inclusive, territorially grounded pathways are crucial for bending the curve of biodiversity loss.

This paper introduces a conceptual approach called Indigenized Multimodalities, aimed at fostering collaboration among policy, science, and art. Utilizing multimodal anthropology, this approach promotes transformative scholarship and dismantles barriers between scientific fields. The methodology was developed during the “Bridging Values” global consortium project and informed a cinema-based pedagogy implemented in EthnoKino’s Doc Impact Lab for Mov(i)ement Fellows, who focus on impact design and collaborative storytelling.Drawing on Malcolm Ferdinand’s concept of double fractures, the paper advocates for recognizing multiple fractures beyond the binary of Global North and South. It outlines a collaborative pathway consisting of three steps: 1) Integrating narratives to navigate fractures, 2) adopting a relational approach to collaboration, and 3) shifting research paradigms for systemic change.The paper calls for moving beyond colonial dualities by bridging narratives across continents and communities, promoting global emancipation through the creation of ethno-fiction films, scientific outreach videos, and a blog-sharing platform.

Chapter 3: Future interactions across the nexus of the Thematic Assessment Report on the Interlinkages among Biodiversity, Water, Food and Health of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

With global warming, increased heat stress will substantially impact the rural labor force. Understanding and quantifying this impact is difficult, especially due to regional differences: Does the temperature increase? Is there more solar exposure? Does humidity respond non-linearly with respect to temperature changes? Furthermore, humans are resourceful, and local environments could provide adaptation methods to decrease heat impacts. A policy-relevant assessment in the context of the Paris Agreement is even more difficult with existing CMIP-type simulations with prescribed greenhouse gas trajectories that lead to a different and often non-stable warming for each model. To resolve the impacts climate mitigation and adaptation on heat stress on warming levels with specific relevance for the Paris Agreement, we use the Community Earth System Model (CESM2) driven by emissions from the Adaptive Emissions Reduction Approach (AERA) to generate climate mitigation scenarios stabilized at 1.5°C, 2.0°C and 3.0°C of global warming. One form of adaptation to heat stress impacts is to use the local environment for cooling. Within CESM2, we compare the direct and indirect exposure to solar radiation within the vegetated canopy as an inexpensive form adaptation. To diagnose the heat stress conditions we use the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 7243, the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT), realized by first principles representation of the globe, dry bulb, and natural wet bulb thermometers utilizing CESM2’s temperature, humidity, winds, and radiation. The WBGT values are transformed into labor capacity using standardized algorithms (e.g. NIOSH or Lancet) and the above canopy (no adaptation) and below canopy (with adaptation) labor capacity are directly compared to each other. We show that the potential to adapt by using the local environment for cooling is not uniform across regions. For example, evaluating the hottest seasonal period (defined as a local summer), at the 3.0°C mitigation scenario in equatorial Southeast Asia, adaptation can save up to 50% of total labor capacity losses. However, in northern South Asia, adaptation saves only 10% of the seasonal labor capacity losses. These results demonstrate that rural laborers in some locations may have limited capacity to adapt to differing global mitigation strategies and may require mechanical cooling or other expensive forms of adaptation.