Even if we stopped emitting all greenhouse gases today, we're still committed to a certain degree of warming due to our historical emissions and the lag time that the gases remain in the atmosphere. In short, we can't mitigate our way out of the problem entirely, so in addition to thinking about what it will take to sharply pull down our emissions curve, we also need to be anticipating the impacts to which we're already committed and preparing for them locally to create strong, resilient communities.
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
This lesson will take us one week to complete. Please refer to the corresponding module in Canvas for specific assignments, deliverables, and due dates.
If you have questions, please feel free to post them to the "Have a question about the lesson?" discussion forum in Canvas. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses if you, too, are able to help a classmate.
There are two broad categories of adaptation for us to understand:
The Repetto reading for this week walks through adaptation by type quite nicely (which is why despite it being 11 years old, I'm using it - I can't find another paper that describes this so well). There are tradeoffs associated with each type of adaptation, as you might imagine.
Be thinking about these questions as you work through the Repetto reading.
The table below lays this out pretty nicely to help you sort out where certain adaptation practices fall. What do you notice immediately? Natural systems can only respond reactively to climate change. The ability to anticipate and plan for these changes is uniquely human, and as such you could argue we have an even greater responsibility to prepare our natural systems for the changes on the horizon.
In the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, Working Group II (Impacts, Vulnerability, and Adaptation) offered this definition of maladaptation:
"...actions that may lead to increased risk of adverse climate-related outcomes, increased vulnerability to climate change, or diminished welfare, now or in the future." (IPCC Working Group II, 2014)
And while we tend to think of maladaptation in its most basic sense as being action that makes something worse, the IPCC went on to provide categorical examples of maladaptive actions:
Broad type of maladaptive Action |
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Failure to anticipate future climates. Large engineering projects that are inadequate for future climates. Intensive use of non-renewable resources (e.g., groundwater) to solve immediate adaptation problem. |
Engineered defenses that preclude alternative approaches such as ecosystem-based adaptation. |
Adaptation actions not taking wider impacts into account. |
Awaiting more information, or not doing so, and eventually acting either too early or too late. Awaiting better "projections" rather than using scenario planning and adaptive management approaches. |
Forgoing longer term benefits in favor of immediate adaptive actions; depletion of natural capital leading to greater vulnerability. |
Locking into a path dependence, making path correction difficult and often too late. |
Unavoidable ex post maladaptation, e.g., expanding irrigation that eventually will have to be replaced in the distant future. |
Moral hazard, i.e., encouraging inappropriate risk taking based on, e.g., insurance, social security net, or aid backup. |
Adopting actions that ignore local relationships, traditions, traditional knowledge, or property rights, leading to eventual failure. |
Adopting actions that favor directly or indirectly one group over others leading to breakdown and possibly conflict. |
Retaining traditional responses that are no longer appropriate. |
Migration may be adaptive or maladaptive or both depending on context and the individuals involved. |
Whether through reactive or anticipatory measures, communities around the world are already responding to the impacts of climate change. Let's highlight just a few examples.
These short video clips, produced by the Global Commission on Adaptation (we'll read something from this organization this week, too), give you a glimpse into some adaptation measures and perspectives of the people on the front lines of climate change impacts from around the world. Take a look (all fair game for upcoming quizzes and exam). The New York City example feels distinctly different than the first three, doesn't it? What's different about it? Think about what surprised you the most from the videos (I can pinpoint the biggest shock to me, and I'll share it with you later in the week.)
Last week, we spent some time thinking about the differences between mitigation and adaptation as they relate to climate change. Let's revisit that thinking for a moment.
Mitigation is our big-picture, tackle the problem at its root cause way to address climate change. Adaptation is our response to the impacts of the climate we've already committed to changing. Mitigation is longer term and occurs most effectively at broader geographic scales. Adaptation is inherently a more localized endeavor.
We also talked about the relative costs of focusing our climate change responses more heavily toward one (or neither) of mitigation or adaptation and discovered, you really get what you pay for.
Now, we prepare to head into our final lesson on sustainable development, let's be thinking about the outcomes of both mitigation and adaptation measures, and where we see opportunities for overlap. In other words, what are some actions we can take that provide both mitigation of the causes of climate change (i.e. reduces our emissions) and also makes us more resilient to impacts?
This venn diagram is from the City of Calgary's Climate Program and it highlights efforts they're taking to both mitigate and adapt to climate change. But what I'd like you to focus on is the area of overlap - look at how implementing water conservation measures, supporting local food, emphasizing education, and other actions create benefits both in reducing emissions and building resiliency to impacts (not to mention probably making Calgary a nicer place to live along the way).
Adapting to climate change impacts is a necessary part of our response to the climate crisis. This week, we've talked about how no matter how swiftly and aggressively we mitigate the causes of climate change, we're still going to need to prepare for the changes we're likely to face anyway. How we choose to respond and adapt has great implications for overall cost, effectiveness, and equity. We've looked at both the US context and a broader international perspective which challenges us to think back to what we've learned about the people and places who create climate change vs. the people and places who most harshly feel the negative impacts of climate change.
Next up, we'll continue thinking about adaptation from the framework of sustainable development and look closely at the UN's Sustainable Development goals - ending our semester together on a hopeful, actionable note!
You have reached the end of Lesson 11! Double-check the lesson assignments in the corresponding lesson module in Canvas to make sure you have completed all of the tasks listed there.