Adapting to Climate Change

Scientific evidence confirms that climate change is already taking place and there is stronger evidence that most of the warming observed during the last 50 years is attributable to human activities. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has concluded that climate change will bring about gradual changes, such as sea level rise, and shifts of climatic zones due to increased temperatures and changes in precipitation patterns.

Also, climate change is very likely to increase the frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events such as droughts, floods, and storms. The poor in developing countries are more at risk from the impacts because of their limited capacity to cope with existing climate variability and future change. Despite international efforts, poverty has become more widespread in many countries in the last decade, making poverty reduction the core challenge for development in the 21st century. In the Millennium Declaration, 189 nations have resolved to halve extreme poverty by 2015. However, climate change is a serious risk to poverty reduction and threatens to undo decades of development efforts.

Adaptation to climate change carries an answer for ensuring the long-term effectiveness of our investment in poverty eradication and sustainable development and a viable climate change regime must be built on the core principles of equity and fairness and include an appropriate balance of rights and obligations.

In recent years, interest in vulnerability and adaptation to climate change has grown considerably, particularly in response to the concerns of the most vulnerable communities and countries. There is no one single and unique definition of what ‘adaptation to climate change’ is. The evolution of the concept adaptation is based on a bottom-up approach.

Documents

• Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change in Europe - EEA Technical report No 7/2005
  The report shows that in Europe mountain regions, coastal zones, wetlands and the Mediterranean region
  are particularly vulnerable to climate change.
  

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