Effective adaptation needed to combat risks of climate change, says IPCC

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has identified eight serious risks—including death, injury, ill-health and food systems breakdown—as potential impacts of climate change and concluded that adaption can help reduce these risks.

The risks are listed in the summary for policymakers of the second instalment of the IPCC’s fifth assessment report, Climate Change 2014: Impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability. The summary was published on 31 March. The first instalment of the fifth report was published in September.

The summary, which was put together by more than 300 authors and editors from 70 countries, says that the impacts of climate change can already be observed on all continents and across the oceans. It says that adaption can help reduce the risks, and outlines a set of principles for effective adaptation. For instance, coordinating actions enhances adaptation and incorporating adaptation into planning. As a first step,  it is important to reduce vulnerability to existing climate variabiility, for instance by planning development and disaster management, it says.