Climate change and adaptation

Vulnerability and Adaptation Resource Group Climate Change and Adaptation 1.0 Introduction 1. In preparation for its Presidency of the Eleventh Conference of the Parties (COP-11) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Government of Canada has identified four issues that will influence the creation of an effective and inclusive international climate change regime [...] Mitigation remains a priority for the international community, since the degree of adaptation required is a function of a rise in global temperatures spurred by increased concentrations of GHGs in the Earth’s atmosphere and there are limits to the capacity of systems to adapt to change. [...] Increase in Awareness and Dialogue – The limited awareness and knowledge of policymakers in developing and developed countries regarding the implication of climate change for the achievement of local and national sustainable development objectives is “an immediate and continuous challenge” (EC 2005). [...] The pervasiveness of the current and anticipated impacts of climate change – across sectors, geographies, social groups, and from the local to the global – implies that hundreds of billions of dollars will be required in the near- and long-term.8 Recent calculations estimate that the financial toll climate change is presently doubling every decade (Simms et al 2004). [...] Disaster Risk Reduction, as the most immediate evidence of climate change is likely to be an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.9 Effective and efficient arrangements are needed to increase the ability of vulnerable communities and the poor to prepare for and recover from the impacts of these events (Linnerooth-Bayer et al 2003).