Surviving Climate Change: Adopting Adaptive Principles

The past two years taught us to survive a global pandemic. We adapted to changes we never thought we would. Who had imagined the world coming to a stop for nearly a year, thousands and lakhs of deaths in each country, emergency declarations all over the world, however we came through! Nonetheless, while we are still building resilience and adapting to the Covid-impacts, we have another bigger and major existential threat coming our way. The COP27 held in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt this year from Nov 6, 2022 – Nov 18, 2022, made the world leaders and the population realize that the earth is literally dying at the expense of human pleasure. The dynamic climate has more entanglements across all spheres of our cherished existence and its repercussions will be felt for future generations if we fail to act now.

Clusters of innovations are stimulating and many resources have driven to channel action around the world. President Joe Biden at the COP27 unveiled an entourage of actions to pillar the developing countries adapt and build resilience to climate change, recommit to global efforts to reduce methane emissions, and create climate-smart food systems. Climate change is significantly threatening the risks of various livelihoods around the world. Although the risks cannot be reduced to zero, this implies that the billions of population need to adapt and take decisive measures to strengthen themselves and face the situation as it is.

According to a report, The Adaptive principles, doing so requires precise management and planning so that we not only reduce the climate risks but simultaneously also accelerate development, reduce poverty and save as many lives as possible. It becomes important for the government and leaders around the world to encourage their people to enhance the adaptive capacity of their households by supporting them with incentives, information as soon as possible. The government should ensure that all the necessities are accessible to all classes of people even if it requires directly supporting the poorest people, who cannot afford to invest in adaptability without any supervision and are the most vulnerable to the hazardous effects of climate change. It also means to prioritize and channel actions that are compatible with the current availability of resources and consistently monitoring the progress.

The main intent of an adaptation and resilience strategy is not to implement discrete projects but to ensure that all government departments and public agencies unanimously adopt the planned strategy in all aspects, and the governments continuously monitor them for the evaluation of the follow-up impacts of their decisions and actions and then adjust accordingly. We have been facing the consequences of climate change ever since and there is no magic shield to prevent them. Nonetheless, proactive and robust actions ahead of time, adaptation and building resilience can go a long way to support people and communities so that when it gets worse than ever, not only are they better prepared to respond, but survive through it.