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Survive or thrive the coming climate change 24.06.09
“Adapting to the new climate of the 21st century will be costly, sometimes impossible and potentially hugely destabilizing to society” argues Professor Neil Adger at the University of East Anglia, in his lastest book, Adapting to Climate Change, published this week by Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research with Cambridge University Press.
The costs of adaptation will force governments to redefine what they mean
by progress, argues Professor Adger’s new book Adapting to Climate Change,
published this week by researchers at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change
Research, the University of East Anglia, and the University of Oslo.
Adapting to Climate Change is the latest science of how the risks of climate
change will impact water availability, biodiversity, flooding, land inundation
and health, and how those impacts might be handled by society. The book
comes in the same week that the UK’s Environment Agency called for a
doubling of funding to protect the UK from flood damage resulting from
future climate change.
Adapting to Climate Change: Thresholds, Values, Governance finds that:
• Adaptation thresholds: The impacts of climate change come in large steps
that are difficult to adapt to. Evidence from regions such as southern
Africa and South America shows that small shifts in rainfall can radically
alter what can be grown and transforms the prospects for agriculture.
“We need to detect these localized tipping points and learn early lessons
from early warnings” says Professor Neil Adger.
• Adaptation Values: People do not necessarily agree the importance of the
risks because they have different values and worldviews. In India, fishing
communities are threatened by changing fish stocks, affecting not only
livelihoods, but also personal and cultural identities. “It is difficult to tell
fishermen and fisherwomen to hang up their nets. Such adaptation will be
painful for many” says Professor Karen O’Brien of the University of Oslo.
• Adaptation Governance: Governments need new ways to handle the risks
of climate change. “The controversy over property lost to coastal erosion
in East Anglia in England shows that compensation can only ever be part
of the solution. People want security and long term planning. They want
to be included and their voice to be heard” says Neil Adger.
The book is also a call for action on reducing emissions as the cause of the
problem. “Adaptation is the key challenge of climate change for our lifetime
whether or not there is a significant international deal at Copenhagen on
greenhouse gas emissions” says Karen O’Brien. A deal on reducing emissions
is vital to stave off the worst impacts.
The book Adapting to Climate Change: Thresholds, Values, Governance is edited by
Neil Adger and Irene Lorenzoni of the Tyndall Centre at University of East
Anglia and Karen O’Brien from University of Oslo. It is published by Cambridge
University Press www.cambridge.org/uk/catalog...
Neil Adger is Professor in the School of Environmental Sciences at University
of East Anglia and leads the adaptation theme in the Tyndall Centre for
Climate Change Research.
Karen O’Brien is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Human
Geography at the University of Oslo. She is Chair of the international
research programme on Global Environmental Change and Human Security and leads the PLAN project on climate change adaptation in Norway.
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