CLIMATE ADAPTATION

Desertec

Ong Van Sinh/UNEP

Roger LeMoyne/UNEP

‘Unprecedented in the history of mankind’ – were the thoughts of engineer, Dr Alison Cooke, from the University of Cambridge as she observed at first hand her first UN Conference of the Parties (COP) meeting in Cancun, Mexico. ‘The Cancun Conference restored confidence in the UNFCCC process which had been so badly damaged at Copenhagen’, said environment consultant, Claire Parker, because it identified the topics on which an agreement is in sight, and the technical issues that need to be resolved to bring that about.

Sir Crispin Tickell, former UK Ambassador to the UN, and an outsider at Cancun, felt that ‘if Copenhagen mostly failed, Cancun partly succeeded. Negotiations to set up arrangements to manage the enormous and growing problems our society faces over issues ranging from climate change (or as I prefer to call it climate destabilization) to destruction of forests, were at least put back on track for the next round at Durban’.

However, Professor Mike Hulme writing from the University of East Anglia, was concerned that ‘without a more generous and decisive spirit from industrialised countries, with legally-binding commitments backed up by sanctions, Cancun does very little to raise the hopes of the world’s two billion poorest people’.

Certainly, adaptation to climate change remains high on the international agenda as will be seen in current and future papers from experts presented on this website.

Sir Brian Heap
President, European Academies Science Advisory Council
German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
Halle, Germany
Director, Programme for Food Security and Sustainable Development
Malaysian Commonwealth Studies Centre
Trinity College, Cambridge CB2 1TQ

Reactions to UNFCCC COP16, Cancun

NOW AVAILABLE

NEW: LIVING WITH CHANGE: adaptation and innovation in Ladakh
S. Daultry, Visiting Research Associate, Ladakh Renewable Energy Development Agency, India; ACSIS Collaborating Fellow, University of Melbourne; and Associate, University of Cambridge Central Asia Forum, and
R. Gergan, Project Engineer, Ladakh Renewable Energy Development Agency, India

Clean power from deserts and adaptation to climate change
Dr Gerry Wolff PhD CEng
Coordinator of Desertec-UK

IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON WATER RESOURCES IN AFRICA and the Role of Adaptation
Kevin Chika Urama and Nicholas Ozor
African Technology Policy Studies Network (ATPS)
Nairobi, Kenya

THE POLITICS OF ADAPTATION
Peter Dawe
Wash Tidal Barrier Corp plc, Cambridge, UK
www.washbarrier.org

RESPONDING TO CHANGES IN NATURE
Dr. Julian Wright and Dr. Phil Irving
The Environment Agency

SmartLIFE: GOVERNMENT, INDUSTRY AND EDUCATION ADAPTING TO CLIMATE CHANGE
David Arkell
SmartLIFE Project Director and Head of Innovation Partnerships, Cambridgeshire County Council

SIX REASONS WHY ADAPTATION IS NOW UNAVOIDABLE
Martin Parry
Grantham Institute and Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London

KNOWLEDGE ACTION NETWORKS
Connecting Regional Climate Change Assessments to Local Action
C.F. Kennel
Sustainability Solutions Institute and Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego; Global Water Initiative, University of Cambridge/UCSD
S. Daultrey
Global Water Initiative, University of Cambridge/UCSD

THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT FIT FOR A SUSTAINABLE, ENERGYEFFICIENT AND CLIMATE RESILIENT WORLD
M.J. Kelly
Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge

THE POPULATION FACTOR: HOW DOES IT RELATE TO CLIMATE CHANGE?
Malcolm Potts and Leah Marsh
Bixby Center for Population, Health and Sustainability, University
of California, Berkeley