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Key Message

Preparing for and responding to the projected impacts of climate change by all countries—developed and developing—will require integration of adaptation considerations into core decision- and policy-making processes at the international, national, sectoral and local level.

Vulnerability and Adaptation

Understanding how to cope with the impacts of climate change

What's New in Vulnerability and Adaptation?

  • Microfinance and Climate Change Adaptation (PDF - 95 kb)
    Can microfinance services (MFS) be used to support adaptation to climate change? Anne Hammill, Richard Matthew and Elissa McCarter explore this question in the paper "Microfinance and Climate Change Adaptation" published by the Institute for Development Studies. They suggest that MFS can play an important role in vulnerability reduction and climate change adaptation among some of the poor, provided services better match client needs and livelihoods.

  • Land and Water Resource Management in Asia: Challenges for climate adaptation
    (PDF - 386 kb)
    The paper, prepared as background to a workshop held in Hanoi, Vietnam, in January 2009, links the issues of poverty reduction, land and water resource management, and climate adaptation in practice. Within Southeast Asia and the Himalayas, as elsewhere, land and water resource management issues are most pronounced in areas of marginal production systems, and directly connected to poverty reduction efforts. Climate change is likely to exacerbate existing challenges within these sectors in unexpected ways. The paper also reviews some of the many innovative efforts underway in the region to support land and water management and poverty reduction at multiple levels (local, national and regional). It highlights how climate change adaptation measures can complement and reinforce these innovations in land and resource management to reduce rural poverty in Asia. It concludes with the sharing of ideas regarding ways to strengthen the capacity of land and water managers to ensure their continued contribution to the sustainable development of their countries in a changing climate.

As the impacts of climate change become more noticeable, international, national and local awareness of the need to prepare for, and respond to, the impacts of climate change has grown. Although human societies have always dealt with climatic variations and fluctuations, climate change poses new challenges due to the expected pace of change and the pervasiveness of projected impacts. The ability of communities to respond to these impacts will depend upon their ability to access the economic resources, technology, information, skills and infrastructure appropriate to their specific context. It will also require an enabling environment facilitated by suitable policies and programs at the national level.

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While all countries will be affected by climate change, developing countries, particularly the least developed countries, are expected to be among those most heavily impacted. Limited financial, institutional and human resources, high dependency on ecosystem-dependent economic and livelihood activities (e.g., agriculture), and existing stressors such as HIV/AIDS leave the poor most vulnerable and least able to adapt to projected impacts. Climate change will make it even more difficult for developing countries to break out of poverty and achieve their sustainable development objectives. (These ideas are explored further in the accompanying backgrounder on vulnerability and adaptation (PDF - 124 kb) in developing countries.)

IISD works within Canada and internationally to increase understanding of effective responds to the complex socio-economic and environmental impacts of climate change; to develop tools and processes to facilitate these responses; and to encourage integration of adaptation considerations into routine decision-making.

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