Responses to Climate Change
To tackle global warming, most countries of the world
have signed an international treaty - the UNFCCC (United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) -
in June 1992. Till October 2009, 192 parties became
members of the UNFCCC. The main purpose of the UNFCCC
is to consider what can be done to reduce global warming,
and to cope with whatever temperature increases are
inevitable. The UNFCCC Secretariat supports all institutions
involved in the climate change process.
The UNFCCC highlights two fundamental response strategies
to address climate change.
While adaptation aims to lessen the adverse impacts
of climate change through a wide-range of system-specific
actions (Fussel and Klein, 2002), mitigation looks
at limiting climate change by reducing the emissions
of GHGs (greenhouse gases) and by enhancing ‘sink’
opportunities. We will understand adaptation and mitigation
in more detail later in this topic.
For now, let us look at the following figure which
shows the various ways in which human systems respond
to climate change.
Human system’s response to climate change, adaptation
and mitigation
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Initiative
