The fifth national climate assessment corroborates an extensive literature highlighting climate change disparity (usgcrp, 2023)

In the intermountain west, vulnerable communities include those dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods, especially those in rural areas and facing intersectional marginalization such as lower wealth, racial minorities, and service workers (usgcrp, 2023). Climate change research often overlooks historical injustices that are intertwined with its causes (arsenault ET AL, 2018; medeiros ET AL, 2017). Transformation in these communities requires addressing deep-rooted sources of oppression (whyte, 2018), yet the perspectives and voices of these groups are often ignored in adaptation discussions and in the development of indicators and measurement tools (wilson & inkster, 2018). IT is crucial to ground evaluation in the lived perspectives of those most affected by climate change to ensure equitable, sustainable transformations that respect diverse community values. The growing imperative for transformative adaptation is hindered by power dynamics and resistance to change (obrien, 2021; feola, 2015). Recent discussions (e.g., 2023 caprisa seattle meeting) emphasize the need for adaptation that fundamentally alters systems to reduce vulnerability and promote justice and resilience (fedele ET AL., 2019; kates ET AL., 2012). However, successful examples are rare due to its novelty and complexity (pereira ET AL., 2021), and risk maladaptation if actions overlook uncertainty, suppress knowledge systems, or lack context-specific planning (wyborn ET AL., 2016). Empirical evidence on assessing adaptation is limited and has disciplinary/sectoral fragmentation (church ET AL., 2022). We propose refining, developing, and testing an evaluation framework to explore links between climate services and transformative capacity. Our goals include expanding an existing framework (witinok-huber ET AL., 2024), building the capacity of community-based organizations (COBS), implementing evaluation tools in a real-world setting, and planning for future collaborations. We anticipate this will result in useful indicators and evaluation tools, expanded networks for cbos and climate services providers (CSPS), and deeper, more diverse discussions around transformation. Our proposal aligns with the competition #1 goal of developing frameworks to evaluate adaptation, especially towards transformative pathways. We aim to create tools focusing on indicators for transformative capacity, enabling assessment of progress over time and fostering resilience and transformative adaptation in vulnerable communities. By synthesizing literature and engaging in listening sessions, we will contribute to identifying and developing indicators reflecting social dimensions of adaptation. Further, like the JUSTICE40 initiative states that federally funded programs should benefit all people, especially those vulnerable to climate change. We are partnering with cbos and CSPS to allow US to refine our framework through feedback, emphasizing social and economic indicators such as access, agency, power, and equity, and determine how best to operationalize the indicators. Additionally, our work will address noaas long-term climate research goals by enhancing community resilience through CO-producing evaluation tools and indicators, refining tools for practical application, and offering diverse learning approaches tailored to community needs. Though internships and a case study, we will also mentor future indigenous, latinx, low-income, and rural youth to be boundary spanners including increasing awareness around diverse career pathw