In the course of climate change and the respectively expected impacts, the pressure for foresighted climate change adaptation is growing in Germany. However, with exception of climate mitigation and specialized regulations, climate change adaptation has barely found its way into legal instruments so far. The legal instruments of several policy fields do not take climate change adaption into account – there is no mainstreaming occurring. Thus, integrated and foresighted adaptation measures are still left to be considered. Still, the regulatory mainstreaming of climate change adaptation poses challenges for legislation, which are rooted in the characteristics of the policy field. Climate change impacts and adaptation are linked to insecurities. To integrate them through providing the necessary flexibility within legal instruments to respond to changing circumstances without losing sight of the goals is the main task of climate change adaptation mainstreaming. Against this background, the research team including the Leibniz-Institut für ökologische Raumentwicklung, Freien Universität Berlin (Forschungszentrum für Nachhaltigkeit), KLUG – Deutsche Allianz Klimawandel und Gesundheit e.V., and Fresh Thoughts Consulting assesses the following issues: 

• Analyses of legal changes that have already been made and of legal instruments with potential for mainstreaming climate change adaptation (at the federal and state levels) 

• Assessment of existing regulations regarding appropriateness and impact 

• Overview of potential legal instruments suitable for climate change adaptation mainstreaming 

• Criteria-based proposal for instruments to be elaborated, with consideration of their potential effectiveness 

• Overview of proposals for specific regulation contents of legal instruments for mainstreaming climate change adaptation 

• Exemplary outline of legal instruments and fields of action on some concrete content-related regulation proposals 

• Usable development of existing regulatory proposals 

• Drafting of regulatory proposals for legal instruments