Climate change and adaptation

While climate change mitigation is vital, it is clear that the world must also begin to adapt - but how best can this be achieved?

This book covers current practices for managing climate risks, deficits between current practices and needs for effective management of climate risks, the changing nature of the risks due to human caused climate change, strategies for adapting to climate change to lessen the risks, and the need to integrate these strategies into development planning and resource management.

The book also identifies obstacles to effective adaptation and explores measures needed to create conditions that are favourable to climate change adaptation.The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded in its 2001 report that much of the developing world is highly vulnerable to adverse impacts from climate change.

But the IPCC also concluded that the vulnerabilities of developing countries are too little studied and too poorly understood to enable determination of adaptation strategies that would be effective at reducing risks.

This authoritative volume (along with its companion on vulnerability), resulting from the work of the Assessments of Impacts and Adaptations to Climate Change (AIACC) project launched by the IPCC in 2002, is the first to provide a comprehensive investigation of the issues at stake.