Is it time to Adapt?
‘Mitigating climate change by reducing carbon emissions is simply not enough. We have to adapt.’
Pooran Desai, OnePlanet.
Pooran Desai of OnePlanet explains to The Ecologist magazine why ‘mitigating climate change by reducing carbon emissions is simply not enough. We have to adapt.’
The kind of climate change being forecast by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body that assesses climate science, depends on very high rates of carbon emissions reduction and carbon storage technologies that are unproven. It is most likely that the future has a number of catastrophic climate events in store for us – at least as things stand.
It is generally accepted that we need to limit global warming to under 1.5oC. Unfortunately, this is now very unlikely so it is time we start thinking about adapting our cities and regions to the future ahead of us. Adapting to climate change has long been a taboo subject. This is because many environmentalists have felt that accepting the need to adapt means you undermine the need to reduce carbon emissions (what is called ‘mitigation’). But adaptation and mitigation need not be separate strategies.
We need a positive adaptation that creates resilient communities and regenerates the living systems of our planet, whilst at the same time as reduces carbon emissions.
To read the full article on the Ecologist webpage, click here.