Fairness in Adaptation to Climate Change

Extract

Fairness in Adaptation to Climate Change. Edited by W. Neil Adger, Jouni Paavola, Saleemul Huq, and M. J. Mace. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006. 319p. $62.00 cloth, $25.00 paper.

Fairness in Adaptation to Climate Change moves away from the scientific debate on the environmental impacts of climate change and mitigation strategies to an acceptance of the fact that countries and even localities within countries will have to adapt to changes in their climate. The authors also acknowledge that there will be both winners and losers, again, sometimes within countries as well as across international borders. They also note that there are relative winners and losers, and that losses of life, health, and species must be treated differently from economic losses. Although equity has been an important part of the international debate on climate change policy, previous texts have focused on the question of mitigation and whether developing nations should be allowed to continue emitting greenhouse gasses in order to improve their economic conditions, while developed nations are required to reduce emissions.