Adapting to the future
Currently
more than one thousand scientists and policy makers have gathered in
Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss how to better integrate climate science
with climate policies to help adapt to climate change.
Climate change is already affecting ecosystems and people all over
the world today - through increased frequency and severity of droughts,
floods, storms, fire, disease outbreaks, and other changes. These
changes will increase no matter what we are doing today because of the
inertia of the climate system.
This fact does not mean that all is lost. We can and must act to
avoid the passing of irreversible tipping points in the climate system.
However, this fact does mean that we urgently need to also talk about
how to adapt to our changing climate.
Discussions on adaptation to climate change have been neglected,
probably because discussing adaptation seems to imply that we have
given up mitigating climate change, i.e. reducing greenhouse gas
emissions. But thinking about how to best adapt to climate change does
not mean that we gave up doing anything we can to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions. However, it does mean that we understand the fact that many
changes are going to worsen no matter what we do to try to minimize
those changes.
So how can we adapt to climate change? This question is the main subject of the Word Conference on Climate Change in Geneva. This conference is the third of its kind (after 1979 and 1990), organized by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which brings together world leading scientists and politicians to cooperate more effectively on climate change issues.
The vision of this year's conference is to create "A global
framework for climate services that links science-based climate
predictions and information with the management of climate-related
risks and opportunities and supports adaptation to climate variability
and change." In simpler words, this means that the future scenarios
that are provided by climate change models need to become better
integrated in regional and national policies to help local people
better adapt to the coming changes. For example, scenarios on droughts
or floods will help farmers decide which varieties of plants to plant;
and warnings on upcoming climate extremes will help people better
prepare for storms, fire hazards, and floods.
Adapting to climate change is a matter of survival for millions or
even billions of people. The fact that this subject is finally the main
subject of a world conference is of great significance: the world
understands the impacts we have on our fellow humans. Let's hope that
the urgent need for adaptation will inspire new ideas also on how to
mitigate climate change more effectively. Because at some point (after
the passing of tipping points) it might be impossible to adapt to many
of the changes we create.
Maiken Winter