Setting priorities for adapting to climate change

Abstract

It is not likely that efforts to control greenhouse gas emissions will completely eliminate the risk of climate change. Thus, policymakers will eventually have to address adaptation to the effects of climate change. Given the uncertainties about the timing, direction, and magnitude of regional climate change, it might seem preferable to postpone adaptive measures until after climate changes. Yet, this may not produce satisfactory results if climate change impacts are irreversible or catastrophic, long-lived resource systems are affected, or current trends make adaptation less likely to succeed in the future. In these cases, policy changes in anticipation of climate change may be justified. Anticipatory climate change measures need to be flexible—they should absorb impacts or enable a system to quickly recovery under a wide variety of climate situations. In addition, they should be economically efficient, that is their benefits should exceed their costs. Although many measures are appropriate anticipatory measures, not all of them need to be implemented now. Those most in need of immediate implementation should meet at least one of the following criteria: 1. (1) address irreversible or costly impacts; 2. (2) be urgent, i.e. reverse trends that make adoption of the measure more difficult over time; or 3. (3) address long-term decisions, such as building infrastructure. A method is proposed for natural resource policymakers to use in analyzing the need for anticipatory adaptation policies and the effectiveness of policy options to anticipate climate change. This method enables policy makers to identify those anticipatory policies most in need of immediate implementation.