The 21st Century climate challenge

Successful adaptationcoupled with stringentmitigation holds the keyto human developmentprospects for the21 st Century and beyond• Revising PRSPs. All PRSPs should beupdated over the next two years toincorporate a systematic analysis ofclimate change risks and vulnerabilities,identify priority policies for reducingvulnerability and provide indicativeestimates for the financing requirementsof such policies.• Putting adaptation at the centre of aidpartnerships. Donors need to mainstreamadaptation across their aid programmes, so thatthe effects of climate change can be addressedin all sectors. By the same token, nationalgovernments need to mainstream adaptationacross ministries, with the coordination ofplanning taking place at a high political level.Conclusion4Adapting to the inevitable: national action and international cooperationThe limitations of adaptation strategies haveto be recognized. Ultimately, adaptation is anexercise in damage limitation. It deals withthe symptoms of a problem that can be curedonly through mitigation. However, failure todeal with the symptoms will lead to large-scalehuman development losses.The world’s poorest and most vulnerablepeople are already adapting to climate change.For the next few decades, they have no choicebut to continue adapting. In a good-casescenario, average global temperatures willpeak around 2050 before they reach the2°C dangerous climate change threshold. Ina bad-case scenario, with limited mitigation,the world will breach the 2°C threshold before2050 and be set on course for still further rises.Hoping—and working—for the best whilepreparing for the worst, serves as a useful firstprinciple for adaptation planning.Successful adaptation coupled withstringent mitigation holds the key to humandevelopment prospects for the 21 st Centuryand beyond. The climate change that the worldis already locked into has the potential to resultin large-scale human development setbacks, firstslowing, then stalling and reversing progress inpoverty reduction, nutrition, health, educationand other areas.Developing countries and the world’spoor cannot avert these setbacks by actingalone—nor should they have to. As shown inchapter 1 of this Report, the world’s poor walkthe earth with a light carbon footprint. Withtheir historic responsibility for the energyemissions that are driving climate change andtheir far deeper current carbon footprints, richcountries have a moral obligation to supportadaptation in developing countries. They alsohave the financial resources to act on thatobligation. The business-as-usual model foradaptation is indefensible and unsustainable.Putting in place large-scale adaptationinvestments in rich countries while leavingthe world’s poor to sink or swim is not just aprescription for human development reversals.It is a prescription for a more divided, lessprosperous and more insecure 21 st Century.198 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2007/2008