Natural England - Adaptation

Adaptation

Climate change adaptation describes how people or the environment respond to climate change, or anticipated climate change, to reduce its effects. In some cases, the responses might be to take advantage of the effects of climate change.

Adaptation might occur naturally in the environment, for example when birds start nesting earlier to take advantage of the warmer spring temperatures. Or it might be action taken by people, for example by growing different crops that can cope with drier summers.

To promote conservation of the natural environment, adaptation might include the creation of space for wildlife to enable it to move in response to changing temperatures. We may need to manage sites for new species as well as modifying our management techniques to help existing ones.

Why do we need adaptation?

Carbon dioxide released stays in the atmosphere for up to 100 years. Even if we stopped all our emissions of greenhouse gases today, we would have the effects of 30-40 years of temperature rises and over a century of sea-level rise to cope with. We have already had nearly 0.8ºC of temperature rise since the 1850s, so we need to take action now to deal with those changes.

But mitigation – reducing greenhouse gas emissions – is also important so that we avoid dangerous levels of climate change in the future.