I'm taking the UN free courses on climate change and I came across the following image which I thought was interesting although a bit dated. A lot of interesting things here, at the very least the mitigation/adaptation ratio. Any thoughts on this graphic, y'all?
That’s really interesting, Jason! So glad you are taking the courses. This is an aspect we haven’t really delved into, but will obviously be very important to the eventual outcome. I hope you will give us a report on what you learn in these classes, and maybe we should add a slot to our meetings for such reports! Thanks for the link, I will check it out!
@lcohan1234 here is the url to register for the courses is https://unccelearn.org/ . I'm about to take one class on International and another on Green Finance.
Not sure how households contribute. Maybe the calculations involve expenses such as the charging stations that people build in their garages for their electric cars? Not sure though.
As I understand it, mitigation means 'reducing climate change' and involves reducing/eliminating the amount of carbon that we are putting into the atmosphere, to reduce climate change. An example would be investment in renewable energy. CCL's carbon credit is a mitigation strategy.
Adaptation indicates adapting to climate change. Consider investments that coastal cities make in response to rising sea levels and more dangerous hurricanes. It also would involve strategies to combat the rising food insecurities that climate change will bring.
Its complicated in that mitigation probably needs to be the heavy focus, since the problem we're dealing with in terms of climate change will be exponentially worse if we don't deal with it now and that includes adaptation tactics. The thing is that private companies like to invest in mitigation strategies.
Adaptation strategies don't really have the potential to recoup investments. They are more of an expense that needs to occur. The problem with the under-investment in adaptation strategies is that the small island nations and developing countries (Bangladesh with floods) and African nations have less resources to spend on adaptation though they will be disproportionately affected by climate change (although of course they are not the ones most responsible for it).
Gonna have to study this one for a while, Jason.
I have questions:
How do households contribute?
What differentiates adaptation from mitigation, and then why the big difference between the two?
I’d like to know more about the course!