Don´t just mitigate, ADAPT!

Pez 1 Efforts made by countries to reach the carbon dioxide level targets established by Kyoto protocol shows commitment, political will, responsibility and awareness, unfortunately is not enough, it´s only an early stage in which mitigation measures contributes for good but do not face effective future uncertainties.Just by reducing greenhouse gas emissions do not prevent us for the devastating impacts of climate change and there immediate consequence: more inequality. This should be our main goal, not just because it´s established in the SDG´s but also because there should be a full integration into a broader development policy. The lack of investment on research analysis and in general in allocation of resources leads to impoverished people and make all the work done by MDG´s till now, totally useless. In addition, climate variability creates a direct impact on the agricultural sector, hence on production that slows down economy growth and a key achievement of MDG´s: reduction of poverty by increasing GDP growth. The prioritisation in the political agenda of adaptation measures is a key element and could only be achieved with an important pressure from the international community that raise awareness and change the current political attitude towards investment on uncertainty. Let´s accept it, is non-marketable for governments to invest on an uncertain basis, particularly after the recent recovery from global financial crisis but, is a matter of responsibility, not just for there own countries but also in the context of global efforts. The role of developed countries (that represents less than 20% of the total population and raise almost 70% of green house emissions of the entire planet) become very important as leaders of change and drivers of climate resilient planning able to help developing countries boost their capacities and resources. Promoting change and innovation by investment on infrastructure, I+D, research, work with local communities, flexible fiscal policies or diversification production are some of the urgent measures needed to get to a serious climate change resilience strategy.

Invest on uncertainty is the most certain way to struggle against climate change impacts.

Is in all this process that I am seeing good governance as a weak point that need to be taken into account for developing and developed countries. The corruption element presented in both creates a negative impact in terms of agenda by concentrating efforts towards policies on mitigation measures leaving behind a real adaptation strategy with long term commitment. Uncertainty pushes governments to inaction and poor practice and is precisely here where the empowerment of individuals and communities as well as an accurate and reliable data play an important role on the path to build political feasibility. Governments all of over the world need to show a strong political will and be leaders on this process of change by the implementation of an effective and flexible adaptation strategy; in which transparent and accountable political will  constitutes a value added on the built of a solid structure of resilience against this relentlessness climate change.

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