Mitigation, Adaptation and Sustainable Development
Mitigation individuals, industries and governments may be able to head off or reduce some of the anticipated effects of global warming, according to the IPCC report, but no amount of mitigation will prevent most of the effects outlined in the report from taking place over the next few decades. Humans, like other species, will have to adapt to a changing world. At the same time, the report is very clear that “unmitigated climate change would, in the long term, be likely to exceed the capacity of natural, managed and human systems to adapt.”
Sustainable development also could help limit the impacts of global warming by reducing the vulnerability of people in the areas most likely to be seriously affected and by increasing the adaptability of those regions and the people who live there. Unfortunately, sustainable development is not widely practiced and is development plans.
Leadership, Investment Need to Reduce Impact of Global Warming
But global warming is not a static target. Climate changes continue to increase over time, and their effects continue to accumulate and give rise to more far-reaching impacts. As a result, our ability to achieve effective mitigation, adaptation and sustainable development may be undermined by the global warming impacts such measures are meant to help relieve. Addressing these global issues will require much more aggressive efforts worldwide combined with increased investment by developed countries.
“Industrialized countries, including the USA, which have all done most to contribute to climate change, must lead the way by making significant cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions,” Pearce said. “Current efforts on and resources for adaptation, including available funds from the industrialized world, are clearly inadequate to meet the scale of what is required. Urgent assistance is needed for developing countries, which have done nothing to contribute to the current threat of climate change and who are already facing the devastating effects.”
To learn more about the report, go to the previous page.
