Assessing Institutional Adaptive Capacity in Iran’s Climate Change Governance: an Adaptive Capacity Wheel Approach

This study set out to comprehensively evaluate institutional adaptive capacity in Iran’s climate change governance, using the Adaptive Capacity Wheel (ACW) framework. Through a detailed content analysis of key national laws and programs from 1967 to 2024, our findings revealed a nonlinear and fluctuating trend in this capacity. We found that the most critical weaknesses are in self-critique (−1.41), double-loop learning (−1.32), and accountability (−1.01). This reflects a fundamental difficulty in accepting corrective feedback and adapting new approaches. To further validate these findings, we conducted a one-way ANOVA test, which showed significant fluctuations in key criteria like justice (p = 0.004), financial resources (p = 0.027), and accountability (p = 0.043) over different time periods. In addition, severe limitations in financial and human resources, along with a weak learning capacity, widen the gap between policy formulation and effective implementation. On a more positive note, the system does exhibit relative strengths in legitimacy (0.81), institutional memory (0.56), and responsibility (0.50), which could serve as a solid foundation for future structural reforms. Ultimately, this research argues that sustainably enhancing adaptive capacity in similar contexts will require a significant paradigm shift from crisis to risk management, strengthened learning and transparency mechanisms, and integrated policies with an emphasis on stakeholder participation.