Editing IPCC:AR6/SR15/Chapter-4 (section)

== FAQ 4.3 Why is Adaptation Important in a 1.5°C-Warmer World? ==

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'''''Summary''''' '': Adaptation is the process of adjusting to current or expected changes in climate and its effects. Even though climate change is a global problem, its impacts are experienced differently across the world. This means that responses are often specific to the local context, and so people in different regions are adapting in different ways. A rise in global temperature from the current 1°C above pre-industrial levels to 1.5°C, and beyond, increases the need for adaptation. Therefore, stabilizing global temperatures at 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels would require a smaller adaptation effort than at 2°C.''   ''Despite many successful examples around the world, progress in adaptation is, in many regions, in its infancy and unevenly distributed globally.''

Adaptation refers to the process of adjustment to actual or expected changes in climate and its effects. Since different parts of the world are experiencing the impacts of climate change differently, there is similar diversity in how people in a given region are adapting to those impacts.

The world is already experiencing the impacts from 1°C of global warming above pre-industrial levels, and there are many examples of adaptation to impacts associated with this warming. Examples of adaptation efforts taking place around the world include investing in flood defences such as building sea walls or restoring mangroves, efforts to guide development away from high risk areas, modifying crops to avoid yield reductions, and using social learning (social interactions that change understanding on the community level) to modify agricultural practices, amongst many others. Adaptation also involves building capacity to respond better to climate change impacts, including making governance more flexible and strengthening financing mechanisms, such as by providing different types of insurance.

In general, an increase in global temperature from present day to 1.5°C or 2°C (or higher) above pre-industrial temperatures would increase the need for adaptation. Stabilizing global temperature increase at 1.5°C would require a smaller adaptation effort than for 2°C.

Since adaptation is still in early stages in many regions, there are questions about the capacity of vulnerable communities to cope with any amount of further warming. Successful adaptation can be supported at the national and sub-national levels, with national governments playing an important role in coordination, planning, determining policy priorities, and distributing resources and support. However, given that the need for adaptation can be very different from one community to the next, the kinds of measures that can successfully reduce climate risks will also depend heavily on the local context.

When done successfully, adaptation can allow individuals to adjust to the impacts of climate change in ways that minimize negative consequences and to maintain their livelihoods. This could involve, for example, a farmer switching to drought-tolerant crops to deal with increasing occurrences of heatwaves. In some cases, however, the impacts of climate change could result in entire systems changing significantly, such as moving to an entirely new agricultural system in areas where the climate is no longer suitable for current practices. Constructing sea walls to stop flooding due to sea level rise from climate change is another example of adaptation, but developing city planning to change how flood water is managed throughout the city would be an example of transformational adaptation. These actions require significantly more institutional, structural, and financial support. While this kind of transformational adaptation would not be needed everywhere in a 1.5°C world, the scale of change needed would be challenging to implement, as it requires additional support, such as through financial assistance and behavioural change. Few empirical examples exist to date.

Examples from around the world show that adaptation is an iterative process. Adaptation pathways describe how communities can make decisions about adaptation in an ongoing and flexible way. Such pathways allow for pausing, evaluating the outcomes of specific adaptation actions, and modifying the strategy as appropriate. Due to their flexible nature, adaptation pathways can help to identify the most effective ways to minimise the impacts of present and future climate change for a given local context. This is important since adaptation can sometimes exacerbate vulnerabilities and existing inequalities if poorly designed. The unintended negative consequences of adaptation that can sometimes occur are known as ‘maladaptation’. Maladaptation can be seen if a particular adaptation option has negative consequences for some (e.g., rainwater harvesting upstream might reduce water availability downstream) or if an adaptation intervention in the present has trade-offs in the future (e.g., desalination plants may improve water availability in the present but have large energy demands over time).

While adaptation is important to reduce the negative impacts from climate change, adaptation measures on their own are not enough to prevent climate change impacts entirely. The more global temperature rises, the more frequent, severe, and erratic the impacts will be, and adaptation may not protect against all risks. Examples of where limits may be reached include substantial loss of coral reefs, massive range losses for terrestrial species, more human deaths from extreme heat, and losses of coastal-dependent livelihoods in low lying islands and coasts.

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'''FAQ 4.3, Figure 1'''

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'''Why is adaptation important in a world with global warming of 1.5°C?'''
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Examples of adaptation and transformational adaptation. Adapting to further warming requires action at national and sub-national levels and can mean different things to different people in different contexts. While transformational adaptation would not be needed everywhere in a world limited to 1.5°C warming, the scale of change needed would be challenging to implement.

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