986. The Need to Integrate Adaptation and Mitigation Measures in Response to Climate Change

The recent editorial in Nature Climate Change emphasized the urgency of adaptation to climate change. Today, we present another editorial from the same journal that argues for the integration of adaptation and mitigation in addressing climate change.

Mitigation and adaptation have tended to be considered separately in the past and will continue to be so in the future. However, given the reality that climate change is already occurring, there is an urgent need to integrate adaptation and mitigation in policy and implementation.

At the international, national, regional and local levels, climate action has tended to be driven by mitigation measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with adaptation measures lagging behind. Even if the global ambition to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 is met, the frequency of extreme weather events will continue to increase. Even if the global ambition to achieve net-zero global warming by 2050 is realized, the frequency of extreme weather events will increase and the need to adapt to a changing climate will grow. Separating mitigation from adaptation is counterproductive to promoting effective climate action.

Furthermore, given the complex relationships between adaptation and mitigation, planning and implementing each separately is not cost-effective and in some cases may lead to poor adaptation and unintended consequences. For example, if implementing a reforestation project for carbon sequestration increases water demand, it may hamper attempts to adapt to changing rainfall patterns and local water scarcity. Similarly, solar and offshore wind power can lead to habitat destruction and weaken the resilience of ecosystems. Effectively addressing the impacts of global warming requires the integration of mitigation and adaptation measures.

However, while it makes sense to consider adaptation and mitigation simultaneously, it is also true that there are several historical and institutional challenges to integrating the two. First, as seen in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), international discussions have tended to focus more on mitigation than on adaptation. Second, there has also been a lack of coherence in action at the national level. In the United Kingdom, for example, responsibility for mitigation is divided between the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. This is also the case at the regional/local level, where adaptation and mitigation are often assigned to different teams and priorities and resources are stove-piped, even though they are part of the same government department. In addition, the rapid turnover of specialized officials makes institutional integration difficult. Third, priorities for climate action vary according to national circumstances. Many low-income countries are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change despite their low levels of greenhouse gas emissions. For these countries, poverty reduction and economic development are the most pressing issues, followed by net-zero and adaptive mitigation and enhancing climate resilience, while mitigation is a fundamental priority for high-income countries. Fourth, the nature of monitoring, support and financing mechanisms differs between mitigation and adaptation. Adaptation, which has different climate impacts in different regions and contexts, does not have targets equivalent to international or national GHG emission reduction targets for mitigation. Investing in the uncertainty of counterfactuals (things that have not happened but could have happened) makes adaptation difficult to finance.

The fundamental complexity of developing adaptation and mitigation should not be seen as a challenge, but rather as an opportunity to adopt approaches that address both simultaneously. Such an approach will enable climate-resilient economic growth by addressing knowledge gaps, limiting siloed work on climate action, maximizing co-benefits, and minimizing unintended consequences. Integrating adaptation and mitigation will optimize and leverage the allocation of limited resources and capabilities, promote policy coherence, limit social disparities, and foster innovation, thereby contributing to building a low-carbon world that is resilient to the impacts of climate change.

References
Howarth, C., Robinson, E.J.Z. Effective climate action must integrate climate adaptation and mitigation. Nat. Clim. Chang. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-01963-x

Contributor: IIYAMA Miyuki (Information Program)