ABSTRACT
Public policy is a system of principles to guide decision-making and action to deal with problems and opportunities. Disasters and human influences on hazards and hazard drivers such as climate change are complex social problems, so the sets of policy responses (and lack thereof) that they have promoted are tricky to untangle and evaluate. From regional agreements on drought early warning systems to municipal land-use plans, policies to galvanise action – and to avoid action – have been deployed in all countries and at multiple governance scales from global to local in one form or another.
