Climate Change and Conflict
This week was an interesting week in Bangkok. I was able to meet up with APLP alumni in Bangkok (and scored a FREE place to stay for a week) which is always great, but I also had some great talks with environmental experts as well. Even after months of talking with people and learning about cultures affected by change in climate, I am still amazed by my ignorance of some of the basic trends in climate change work.
This week I learned about the difference between mitigation policy works versus adaptation programs. I learned much about this from talking with people at the Swedish International Development Corporation Agency (SIDA). That is a special thanks to Keiran Thitimakorn (APLP Alumni) which got me in the door. Gave me words of wisdom about the world of financing international environmental programs and working with ADB and SE Asia and for introducing me to three of his colleagues who gave me the education about these two program types. In essence, Mitigation is projects that attempt to curb or eliminate the contributors of Climate change. Wipe the slate clean and end these forms of pollution. Most projects that attempt mitigation are larger in scope and aimed more at national policies and international regulations. Adaptation take the form of projects (usually more local in scope) that are aimed at helping communities "adapt" to the "new norm" caused by climate change and allow people to find livings and live in this new changed world. Adaptation focuses more on individual communities, locals and segments of populations that are affected by the changes occurring in the environment. What I found most interesting is that programs usually focus on either one or the other, often not sharing information or coordinating action plans. On the surface I understood the argument that these were two very different approaches and they don't directly influence each other. Even if we stopped all green house gas pollutants and climate change factors and set them to 0, it will still take decades if not over a century for natural processes to take back over. Thus a balanced approach to mitigation and adaptation will be required. It seems only prudent that these two avenues of climate change work coordinate to some degree so a wise, balanced plan is put forward and followed. But it seldom works that way in the real world I guess.
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April 2015
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