Integrated strategies to reduce vulnerability and advance adaptation,mitigation, and sustainable development |
| |
Authors: | Indur M Goklany |
| |
Institution: | (1) Office of Policy Analysis, U.S. Department of the Interior, MS-3530, 1849 C Street, NW, Washington, DC, 20240, USA |
| |
Abstract: | Determinants of adaptive and mitigative capacities (e.g., availability of technological options, and access to economic resources,
social capital and human capital) largely overlap. Several factors underlying or related to these determinants are themselves
indicators of sustainable development (e.g., per capita income; and various public health, education and research indices).
Moreover, climate change could exacerbate existing climate-sensitive hurdles to sustainable development (e.g., hunger, malaria,
water shortage, coastal flooding and threats to biodiversity) faced specifically by many developing countries. Based on these
commonalities, the paper identifies integrated approaches to formulating strategies and measures to concurrently advance adaptation,
mitigation and sustainable development. These approaches range from broadly moving sustainable development forward (by developing
and/or nurturing institutions, policies and infrastructure to stimulate economic development, technological change, human
and social capital, and reducing specific barriers to sustainable development) to reducing vulnerabilities to urgent climate-sensitive
risks that hinder sustainable development and would worsen with climate change. The resulting sustainable economic development
would also help reduce birth rates, which could mitigate climate change and reduce the population exposed to climate change
and climate-sensitive risks, thereby reducing impacts, and the demand for adaptation. The paper also offers a portfolio of
pro-active strategies and measures consistent with the above approaches, including example measures that would simultaneously
reduce pressures on biodiversity, hunger, and carbon sinks. Finally it addresses some common misconceptions that could hamper
fuller integration of adaptation and mitigation, including the notions that adaptation may be unsuitable for natural systems,
and mitigation should necessarily have primacy over adaptation.
|
| |
Keywords: | Adaptation Adaptive capacity Climate change policies Hunger Integrated strategies Kyoto Protocol Malaria Millennium development goals Mitigation Mitigative capacity Sustainable development UNFCCC |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|