Abstract
How do we as cities, nations, and global communities best respond to global climate change? Mitigation+urtailing greenhouse gas emissions- dominated initial discussions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and international conferences on global climate change. Now that climate change has become a clear and present danger, however, adaptation-lessening the harm and maximizing the benefits of climate change-has received more attention. Analysis reveals that integrating the two responses, though challenging, may be the most effective approach.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 28-38 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Environment |
| Volume | 45 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jun 1 2003 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
gram (GCRP), supported by the National Science Foundation, commis sioned the first comprehensive assessment of impacts and responses for a major metropolitan area: the Metropolitan East Coast.’* This study identified a number of possibly significant impacts, ranging from health and water supply to effects of sea-level rise and storm surges on low-lying transportation infrastructures. Adaptation strategies were identified, although some of them could be difficult or expensive to implement. One example would be integrating climate change resilience into major new capital investment projects near the coastline. Soon after the commissioning of the GCRP study, a major study of Boston-Climate’s Long-term Impacts on Metro Boston (CLIMB)-was initiated with assistance from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which has projected impacts associated with health and energy requirements of warming and impacts on coastal property of sea-level rise.13 The CLIMB study has analyzed costs of adaptive flood-proofing under several different response scenarios, showing that costs are significantly affected by the amount of sea-level rise. Important studies are also being carried out in Europe. The U.K. Climate Impacts Programme at University of Oxford has commissioned a number of studies of adaptation strategies and adaptation responses for regions of the United Kingdom,I4 and researchers in the Netherlands recently released a report on national consequences of climate change, which notes that mitigation will not entirely offset climate change impacts and that, therefore, adaptation will be needed to cope with negative effects.15 Studies in developing countries are just beginning, through such initiatives as those noted in the box on UNFCCC on page 31. One current assessment in Cochin, India, offers some useful preliminary findings about how mitigation and adaptation may relate in such locales (see the box on page 36).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| National Science Foundation |
