Combatting Climate Change in 30 Ways, in 30 Days

As the UN Climate Convention meeting in Cancun approaches, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) wants to highlight that finding solutions to climate change is possible for communities, enterprises and countries in many ways.

UNEP wants to inspire action on climate change by presenting 30 ways to tackle the challenge in 30 days. It releases online case studies to show that solutions to climate change are available and could be copied and scaled up around the world if only governments, enterprises and communities were interested in moving towards low-emission climate-resilient growth.


Read more about the case studies that include Indian solar loans programme, The Green Passport Campaign and improved stoves in Haiti and Nigeria.

More information: UNEP 30 Ways in 30 Days
Picture: UNEP / Indian Solar Programme

Cities are key to fight climate change

With more than 50 % of the world' s population is living in cities, we are an urban species. Cities account for about 80 % of the world-wide pollution. According to Anna Tibaijuka, Executive Director of UN-HABITAT, this clearly shows, that human species is putting the world in danger and cities are key in addressing this challenge. At the same time, cities are leading the world-wide process to fight climate change both in mitigation and adaptation. Adaptation strategies in developing countries are by nature survival strategies. Global climate governance should therefore include those managing the habitats. This discussion has been recorded as part of the series 'Time for Real Questions' during COP15 in Copenhagen.

"Adaptigation"

There are different views when it comes to administrations and climate change response. The opinion of many is that climate change mitigation is most important while others believe that adaptation to the effects of a changing climate is more critical. Most, however, admit that both perspectives have to be taken into account.

Recently there has been a dramatic change in the perspective of how administrations act in response to climate change. After focusing almost solely on climate change mitigation for years, different administrations are now concentrating more on climate change adaptation. According to a Senior Research Fellow in Nordregio, Richard Langlais, good planning integrates both perspectives: adaptation and mitigation. He argues that separating the two perspectives in planning is becoming obsolete and can also lead to contradictory measures.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), climate change adoption is defined as "initiatives and measures to reduce the vulnerability of natural and human systems against actual or expected climate change effects". Climate change mitigation, on the other hand, means "implementing policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance sinks".

Langlais uses a simple example of a municipality planting a new forest along a local river. As he argues, this measure should be seen as both adaptation and mitigation, that is: "adaptigation", by which he means a response to climate change that integrates a focus on adaptation with a focus on mitigation, to avoid conflicts and create synergies. "Seeing this newly planted forest as both adaptation (it buffers the impacts of flooding) and mitigation (it absorbs carbon) is good planning", writes Langlais. The most important thing is to keep "adaptigation" in mind: adaptation and mitigation can be outcomes of the same measures.

Source: Richard Langlais, Journal of Nordregio 9:4, 2009.