Adaptation to climate change and sustainable development:

some conceptsSaleemul Huq

Director

Climate Change Programme

International Institute for Environment and Development

Impacts of climate change

• Impacts will occur in most parts of the planet and have to faced

• Both developed and developing countries will feel the impacts

• The rich will be able to better cope with the impacts than the poor (both in developed as well as developing countries)

Vulnerable countries (and communities)

• All developing countries are particularly vulnerable to impacts of climate change (due to both their location as well poverty)

• Amongst the most vulnerable developing countries are the small island developing states (SIDS) and least developed countries (LDCs)

• Within developing countries the most vulnerable people are the poor communities living in the climate risk zones

Adaptation and development

• The adverse impacts of climate change can be reduced (but not eliminated) by planned adaptation

• Activities related to adaptation are most effective in a number of development related sectors

• The main sectors for adaptation are water management, agriculture,coastal zone management,mountain ecosystem management and climatic hazard management (e.g. floods, droughts and cyclones)

Adaptation Planning

• Within (developing) countries • Focusing on the most vulnerable

communities (and ecosystems)• Mainstreaming into development planning

(based on existing development knowledge)• Building Adaptive Capacity• Raising awareness• Examples are NAPAs (in LDCs)

Role of UNFCCC

• All signatories have accepted responsibility to assist the most vulnerable countries to adapt

• New Funds have been created for this purpose (e.g. LDC Fund, Special Climate Change Fund)

• Promoting awareness, knowledge generation and capacity building

Concluding remarks

• In the real world some level of unavoidable climate change impacts are very probably going to happen within the next few decades and all countries and communities will have to cope with them (whether they like it or not)

• Signatories to the UNFCCC have the power to reduce those impacts by (first) ensuring maximum mitigation and (second) by assisting the developing countries to adapt