Adaptive options
After identifying and assessing the risks (and opportunities) that climate change poses to your organisation, the next step is to identify and appraise potential adaptive responses.
The budget cuts and job losses faced by many organisations mean that action taken to adapt to climate change will usually need to deliver additional socio-economic benefits, and help to meet other goals. UKCIP's (2007) publication on "Identifying Adaptation Options" categorises adaptation options as follows:
- No-regrets adaptation options - are measures that are worthwhile (i.e. they deliver net socio-economic benefits) whatever the extent of future climate change. These types of measures include those justified under current climate conditions.
- Low-regrets adaptation options - are measures with relatively low associated costs, and with relatively large associated benefits, although the benefits will primarily be realised under projected future climate change.
- Win-win adaptation options - are measures that reduce climate risks or take advantage of opportunities, but which also have other social, environmental or economic benefits. These types of measures include those that are introduced primarily for reasons other than addressing climate risks, but which also deliver adaptation benefits.
- Flexible or adaptive management options - these involve putting in place incremental adaptation options, rather than undertaking large-scale adaptation in one fell swoop. Measures are introduced through an assessment of what makes sense today, and are designed to allow for incremental change, including changing tack, as knowledge, experience and technology evolve.
For examples of adaptive options in each of these categories, see the UKCIP "Identifying Adaptation Options" report.
During the East Midlands-wide collaborative Planning to Adapt project, the Local Authorities researched potential adaptive responses to the risks they had assessed. A summary of these adaptive options will shortly be available to download. This will be for inspiration only, it will not be intended as a list of 'recommended' adaptive responses, as the appropriateness of an adaptive response is very much dependent on its context.
Further examples of adaptive responses are in the Sectors and Themes section (use the menu on the right to navigate).
