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REPORTS - ASSESSMENT REPORTS |
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Synthesis Report - Question 6
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Climate Change 2001: Synthesis Report |
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| 6.13 |
Adaptation is a necessary strategy at all scales
to complement climate change mitigation efforts. Together they can contribute
to sustainable development objectives.
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| 6.14 |
Adaptation can complement mitigation
in a cost-effective strategy to reduce climate change risks. Reductions
of greenhouse gas emissions, even stabilization of their concentrations
in the atmosphere at a low level, will neither altogether prevent climate
change or sea-level rise nor altogether prevent their impacts. Many reactive
adaptations will occur in response to the changing climate and rising seas
and some have already occurred. In addition, the development of planned
adaptation strategies to address risks and utilize opportunities can complement
mitigation actions to lessen climate change impacts. However, adaptation
would entail costs and cannot prevent all damages. Adaptation implemented
in combination with mitigation can be a more cost-effective approach to
reducing the impacts of climate change than either applied alone. The potential
for adaptation to substantially reduce many of the adverse impacts of climate
change was assessed in Question 3. Because there are
overlapping ranges of global temperature increases associated with the various
stabilization levels (see Figure 6-1c), many
adaptation options will be appropriate for a range of stabilization levels.
Improved knowledge will narrow the uncertainties associated with particular
stabilization levels and identification of appropriate adaptation strategies.
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WGII TAR Sections 1.4.4.2,
18.3.5, & 18.4.1 |
| 6.15 |
Adaptation costs and challenges can be
lessened by mitigation of climate change. Greenhouse gas emission
reductions would reduce the magnitude and rate of changes to be adapted
to, possibly including changes in the frequencies and intensities of extreme
events. The smaller changes to which systems would be exposed, and slower
pace at which stresses would increase, would allow more time for adaptation
and lessen the degree to which current practices for coping with climate
variability and extremes might need to be modified (see Question
3). More aggressive mitigation efforts will therefore reduce adaptation
costs to attain a specified level of effectiveness.
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WGII TAR Sections 18.2.2,
18.3, & 18.8
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| 6.16 |
Mitigation and adaptation actions can,
if appropriately designed, advance sustainable development objectives.
As described in Question 3, risks associated
with climate change have the potential to undermine progress toward sustainable
development (e.g., damages from extreme climate events, water shortage and
degraded water quality, good supply disruptions and hunger, land degradation,
and diminished human health). Byreducing these risks, climate change mitigation
and adaptation policies can improve the prospects for sustainable development.12
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WGII TAR Section 18.6.1,
& WGIII TAR Sections 2.2.3
& 10.3.2 |
| 6.17 |
The impact of climate change is projected
to have different effects within and between countries. The challenge of
addressing climate change raises an important issue of equity. Climate
change pressures can exacerbate inequities between developing and developed
countries; lessening these pressures through mitigation and enhancement
of adaptive capacity can reduce these inequities. People in developing countries,
particularly the poorest people in these countries, are considered to be
more vulnerable to climate change than people in developed countries (see
Question 3). Reducing the rate of warming and sea-level
rise and increasing the capacity to adapt to climate change would benefit
all countries, particularly developing countries
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WGII TAR Sections 18.5.3
& 19.4 |
| 6.18 |
Reducing and slowing climate change can
also promote inter-generational equity. Emissions of the present
generation will affect many future generations because of inertia in the
atmosphere-ocean-climate system and the long-lived and sometimes irreversible
effects of climate change on the environment. Future generations are generally
anticipated to be wealthier, better educated and informed, and technologically
more advanced than the present generation and consequently better able to
adapt in many respects. But the changes set in motion in coming decades
will accumulate and some could reach magnitudes that would severely test
the abilities of many societies to cope. For irreversible impacts, such
as the extinction of species or loss of unique ecosystems, there are no
adaptation responses that can fully remedy the losses. Mitigating climate
change would lessen the risks to future generations from the actions of
the present generation. |
WGII TAR Sections 1.2 &
18.5.2, & WGIII
TAR Section 10.4.3 |
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