Climate change policy has typically emphasized mitigation, calling for reducing emissions and shifting away from fossil fuels. Yet while these efforts have floundered, floods, wildfires, droughts, ...and other disasters are becoming more frequent and potent. As the risks escalate, we must ask how to adapt to a changing climate. How might farmers modify their practices to maximize food security? Can coastal cities protect their infrastructure from rising seas? Are there strategic ways for developing countries to combine climate resilience with economic growth and poverty reduction? For people and societies around the world, these questions are not theoretical: adaptation is already underway. This book offers a concise overview of climate adaptation governance. In clear, accessible language, Lisa Dale describes key strategies that governments, communities, and the private sector are now deploying. She presents the theory and practice that underlie climate adaptation efforts at local and global scales, providing illuminating case studies that foreground the problems facing developing countries. Dale analyzes the effectiveness of a range of policy interventions, drawing out principles of good governance and discussing how practitioners can navigate complex tradeoffs. She emphasizes equity and inclusion, considering how climate adaptation policy can account for the needs of historically disadvantaged groups. Written for a wide audience, this book is an invaluable introduction for all readers interested in how societies can meet the challenges of an altered climate.
The United Nations Climate Resilience Initiative: Anticipate, Absorb, Reshape (A2R) is a global, UN-led, multi-stakeholder initiative that strengthens climate resilience for vulnerable countries and ...people. A2R addresses the urgent needs of Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Small Island Developing States (SIDS), Africa and other vulnerable regions. The initiative accelerates action on key aspects of climate resilience under its three pillars: 1) Anticipate – Increased capacity to better anticipate and act on climate hazards and stresses through early warning and early action; 2) Absorb – Increased capacity to absorb shocks by increasing access to climate risk insurance and social protection systems; and 3) Reshape – Increased capacity to reshape development pathways by transforming economies to reduce risks and root causes of vulnerabilities and support the sound management of physical infrastructure and ecosystems to foster climate resilience. This report outlines the current status of key indicators relevant to the three pillars. It also identifies some of the challenges faced in this analysis and suggests ways of overcoming them, so that we may, in the future, be able to provide a fuller picture of progress on these three key capacities for climate resilience.
Any analysis of climate change impacts invariably includes attention to infrastructure, as many cities have discovered that long-standing construction practices are no longer durable in a ...climate-altered world. Energy grids, transportation systems, and storm barriers may be unable to withstand higher temperatures and growing storm intensities. Further, the use of some common materials—most notably, concrete—is now understood to generate dangerous GHG emissions. As a result, many countries have begun to explore alternative materials and supply chains as they aspire to climate change mitigation targets. Even infrastructure development that is intended to be resilient can contribute to patterns of
Long before weather patterns were definitively linked to global climate change, natural disasters threatened lives, property, and ecosystems. Historically, droughts and floods were the most ...dangerous, leading to millions of deaths annually and spiraling long-term impacts, including agricultural collapse and rising food insecurity. Today, due in part to improved medical care and urbanization, overall deaths attributable to all kinds of disasters have dropped significantly to an average of 60,000/year, while absolute costs associated with natural disasters have risen steadily, although not evenly, to an estimated $232 billion in 2019.² Figure 2.1 illustrates this pattern.
Scientists now understand that many natural
Throughout this volume, patterns of inequity have emerged in virtually every facet of climate governance. Climate change itself is the product of an asymmetrical world. The United States and Europe ...have largely built their wealth through a fossil-fuel-intensive industrial revolution. They are responsible for emitting the vast majority of the GHGs that now contribute to damaging climate change impacts. Most poorer countries did not amass benefits from a transformative period of industrial development, and many are now highly vulnerable to the impacts associated with climate change. Intensifying these disparate development pathways, the countries experiencing disproportionate climate change impacts are also
Amid trends toward urbanization, rural areas remain essential building blocks of modern societies. Rural communities are characterized by lower-density settlement patterns and distance from urban ...cores. On average, rural dwellers are older, less educated, and less healthy than their urban counterparts; they are also more likely to rely on the informal economy than those who live in cities. Rural landscapes are the centers for agriculture, fishing, and food production and are home to the most productive habitat on the planet, making them hot spots for biodiversity. In some countries, rural areas are also hubs for tourism and recreation. Without urban
As temperatures rise, droughts deepen, and seas encroach on settlements, more areas of the planet become uninhabitable. One result of these trends is climate-driven migration. Since 2008, an average ...of 26.4 million people have been displaced annually by hazards and disasters; sudden-onset weather-related events account for one-third of those displacements.¹ Estimates suggest that by 2050, as many as 200 million people will be forcibly relocated due to climate-change-related impacts; most of those migrations will occur in three subregions: sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America.² We already know that most of those migrants act independently. That is, relocation has and
As profiled in this volume, climate change adaptation governance, while still nascent, is rapidly growing. This book has provided an overview of the most salient dynamics, tools, and strategies ...currently guiding decision-making. We know that trade-offs are pervasive. Popular measures like infrastructure offer some protection from climate change impacts but suffer from high costs and longer-term path dependency concerns. NbS offer access points for a wider range of stakeholders at a lower cost but have not yet succeeded in attracting private investment. Agriculture policy reform can enhance the resilience of farmers but may not result in enduring improvements to food
One of the defining features of global development has been a steady march toward urbanization. As cities become centers for industry, rural residents relocate in search of improved economic ...opportunities, better education, and more reliable access to other public services. Today, urban areas are home to more than half of the global population. More than four hundred cities have a population that exceeds one million. The trend has manifested unevenly, with some parts of the world more urbanized than others. Fully 73 percent of European residents live in urban areas, while far lower proportions are urban across much of Africa
