28 Adaptation
Climate Services may help build resilience
28.1 Lagging mitigation, lagging adaptation
Given the current uncertainties around efforts to limit climate change, the world must plan for, finance and implement climate change adaption measures appropriate for the full range of global temperature increases or face serious costs, losses and damages.
Adaptation – reducing countries’ and communities’ vulnerability to climate change by increasing their ability to absorb impacts and remain resilient – is a key pillar of the Paris Agreement. The Agreement requires all of its signatories to plan and implement adaptation measures through national adaptation plans, studies, monitoring of climate change effects and investment in a green future.
The Gap Report finds that such action is lagging far behind where it should be. It finds that while nations have advanced in planning and implementation, huge gaps remain, particularly in finance for developing countries and bringing adaptation projects to the stage where they bring real reductions in climate risks.
The Green Climate Fund (GCF) has allocated 40 per cent of its total portfolio to adaptation and is increasingly crowding-in private sector investment. Another important development is the increasing momentum to ensure a sustainable financial system.
New tools such as sustainability investment criteria, climate-related disclosure principles and mainstreaming of climate-related risks into investment decisions can stimulate investments in climate resilience and direct finance away from investments that increase vulnerability.
Nature-based solutions (NbS), one of the most cost-effective ways in the adaptation portfolio, has a potential to make a big contribution to climate change adaptation, but there are few tangible plans and limited financing available for them. NbS are mainly used to address coastal hazards, intense precipitation, heat and drought.
28.2 Mobilization for Adaptation
28.2.1 Climate Grant Universities
With cues from the successful land grant model, the United States should establish a system of universities to democratize access to climate knowledge and aid efforts to tackle the climate crisis.
A national climate extension network will address local-scale gaps in the U.S. climate knowledge system created by the unequal availability of climate services.
Kopp (2021) Climate Grant Universities Could Mobilize Community Climate Action