Mitigation will be insufficient: the climate is changing enough that everyone will need to adapt.

Adaptation: "actions taken to adjust to the consequences of climate change, either before or after impacts are experienced." -1

Adaptive Capacity: "capacity of individuals, companies, and states to respond and to reduce their vulnerability to climate change", and may be created by

• invest in knowledge, communication

• invest in institutions that can adjust & learn

• invest in resources (income, education)

• participatory development

• good governance

Sustainable development hasn't always worked so well… and climate change presents new challenges

• Increased risk to existing development challenges

• Risk management won't suffice for people vulnerable to climate change: need to address underlying conditions of existing vulnerabilities

• Climate change adaptation could learn from development (capacity building)

• Adaptation community teaches us how to address "unique stresses associated with climate change" 

Some very radical insight:

• "...adaptive capacity building for adaptation and development needs to squarely address the structural inequalities that create and sustain poverty, constrain access to resources and threaten their long-term sustainability." 

• "Addressing inequalities may require policies that profoundly challenge the current distribution of power and assets across societies."

• Examples: redistribution of income/land, fair trade, universal access to education and health, democracy

Solutions

• Address climate risks through framework of disaster management

• Implement policy to address "deeper structural inequalities that are often at the heart of entrenched vulnerabilities"

• Research should produce "empirical research that systematically and purposefully identifies the markers of success within development programs across different policy systems, climates, and geographies to avoid making the mistakes made by development programs in the past."

Describe what a good outcome from development as climate change adaptation would look like.

Do you think that it is possible to work within development agencies (e.g. USAID, United Nations programs, World Bank, Save the Children) to achieve this?

How can the discipline of geography help?

Good outcomes of development as climate change adaptation would include power-sharing, exchange of knowledge, flexible structures, agency

The role of development agencies in adaptation is challenged by their own agendas and short time frames to measure success

Recognition that development does not occur in a closed system