Research areas

Lily Salloum Lindegaard’s research focuses on the politics and governance of climate change impacts and response. She studies how these intersect with other major socio-economic and political dynamics, for instance development, inequality, human mobility, and state-society relations. Her work often takes a historical approach and considers dynamics across scales of governance.

Lily is also a Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report 7 Working Group II Report on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.

Current research

Lily's research examines the linkages between major climate and development dynamics – and how they are felt on the ground, particularly in the global South. Her work therefore provides a critical perspective on global development and climate response as well as policy insight.

In addition to the specific research programs and policy studies described below, Lily is working on themes of transformational responses to climate change, climate-related loss and damage, adaptation, climate-related mobility and shifting governance arrangements.

Research programs

Lily Salloum Lindegaard is the coordinator of the research program TRANS-AG (2024-2028) (Governing Transformation of Agricultural Systems in Vietnam), a collaborative effort between DIIS, Hue University of Agriculture and Forestry, and the Section for Geography at the University of Copenhagen. TRANS-AG analyses the role of governance in shaping ‘transformational change’, or fundamental system change, and their outcomes in agricultural systems in Vietnam. As environmental challenges mount globally, transformational change will be necessary in many socio-environmental systems and sectors. The TRANS-AG project will provide valuable new theoretical and policy insights on the role of governance and politics in facilitating socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable transformation. See more at www.diis.dk/trans-ag

Lily was also co-founder of the recently completed ‘Governing Climate Mobility’ research program (2019-2024), which examined climate-related mobility and immobility in Ethiopia and Ghana. The program focused on the role of governance factors in climate-related mobility. Specifically, it examined how governance contexts and interventions (1) shape how climate change impacts locally and (2) how (im)mobility is practiced in response. The program also provided a valuable contribution to understanding mobility in relation to slow-onset climate change, which is understudied in relation to sudden extreme events. See the program’s recently published open access volume Governing Climate Mobility in Africa: Explorations of Adaptation in Ethiopia and Ghana, co-edited by Lily and published with Bristol University Press. For more on the GCM program, see www.diis.dk/gcm

Policy studies

Lily’s recent and ongoing policy work includes studies on:

• Institutional Arrangements for Loss and Damage  - This study is a cooperation between DIIS and UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre with support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark. It examines the development of in-country institutional arrangements to assess, report on and address losses and damages across six countries: Vietnam, India, Zambia, Somalia, Vanuatu and Mauritius. The study looks at the role of national, subnational, non-state and international actors and institutions and assesses in-time developments and learnings from institutional arrangements. The study provides valuable insights as many countries seek to develop institutions and processes to both understand and address increasingly severe losses and damages on the ground.
• Displacement, climate change and social cohesion: Exploring loss and damage dynamics – Climate displacement is increasing, yet potential non-economic losses, including social cohesion, are not well understood. This DIIS & Red Cross study provides an exploratory assessment in Ghana and Niger with insights for policy, research and practice. See more at www.diis.dk/social-cohesion