Adept at adaptation

Climate Change in Malawi

Image by Insight Share

By Daniel Nelson, Dhaka

Two approaches to tackling climate change are on the table: stemming the production of global warming gases, and adapting to the changes that rising temperatures will bring.

UN-sponsored international negotiations to reduce emissions are continuing but have been reduced to a snail’s pace and may produce nothing for the foreseeable future. That leaves adaptation.

And that’s why a conference to share knowledge of how vulnerable communities can adapt to the impacts of climate change that takes place this week in Dhaka, Bangladesh, is so important.

Measured against the immensity of the problem, this one meeting will by itself achieve little. Its significance is that it is part of a worldwide effort to move adaptation up the local, national and international agenda.

"People around the world are already adapting to climate change. We need to share knowledge and experience between policymakers, researchers and development agencies so that communities worldwide can benefit," says Dr Saleemul Huq from the climate change group at the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development, co-organisers of the conference with the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies.

Speakers at the conference will be sharing lessons from adaptation projects in settings as diverse as the highlands of Peru and Nepal, the coasts of Bangladesh, Fiji and the Philippines, the small-scale farms of South Africa and Mali, and the urban centres of India and Vietnam.

* International Conference on Community Based Adaptation. 24-31 March, Bangladesh

OneWorld will be webcasting the event and live coverage starts on Monday 28th March at 10:15am Dhaka Time (GMT+7). You can watch it here - http://oneworldgroup.org/cba5