Adaptation is best option on climate change

Government officials from around the world have been on the Indonesian resort island of Bali for two weeks of climate negotiations since December 3. The talk is of a new Kyoto-like treaty, with global caps on emissions of greenhouse gases.

But such a treaty would harm the poor, hampering their adaptability to climate change, while doing little to prevent it.

The science of climate change remains hotly contested, with substantial disagreements over humanity’s role and impact. However, powerful interest groups have spent hundreds of millions of dollars convincing us that without urgent reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases, the climate may warm uncontrollably, with disastrous effects. As a result, there is considerable pressure on politicians to take action. Unfortunately, the organisation set up to advise governments on this question, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is also biased towards alarmism.

The most recent IPCC report repeats controversial claims of a dramatic rise in sea level and increased incidence of extreme weather events. By tragic coincidence, a massive cyclone struck the Bay of Bengal just as the Valencia meeting began, adding graphic weight to both claims--but adding no empirical weight to either. Worse than the biases in the evaluation of the underlying science has been the bias in policy recommendations.

Every IPCC Report has concluded that humanity must reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases substantially and urgently. A similar conclusion was reached by the recent Stern Review, produced for the British government. Yet most economists have concluded that if any restrictions are imposed on greenhouse gas emissions they should be modest, at least initially.

A large part of the problem is that neither Stern nor the IPCC adequately acknowledge the role adaptation would and should play in addressing climate change.