The ABCD of Adaptation

Speaker: Kristie Ebi (download slides)

Summary of Remarks: Adaptation is risk management over multiple spatial and temporal scales.  Over the next few decades, the extent and magnitude of climate change impacts will depend on population and regional vulnerabilities, the amount and rate of regional climate change, and adaptation policies and measures implemented.  Determinants of adaptive capacity include the degree of risk perceived, available human and financial resources, technological options, and the political will to undertake adaptation.  A number of factors could limit the effectiveness of adaptation, such as current infrastructure decisions affecting future vulnerability.  Adaptation decisions need to be integrated across Federal to local scales, possibly requiring new institutional mechanisms.

Excerpt from: Climate change Impacts and Adaptation. January, 2010.

Watch (19 minutes, 33 seconds):

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY

Kristie L. Ebi is Executive Director of the Technical Support Unit for Working Group II (Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  Prior to this position, she was an independent consultant.  She has been conducting research on the impacts of and adaptation to climate change for more than a dozen years, including on extreme events, thermal stress, foodborne safety and security, and vectorborne diseases.  She has worked with the World Health Organization, the United Nations Development Programme, USAID, and others on implementing adaptation measures in low-income countries.  She facilitated adaptation assessments for the health sector for the states of Maryland and Alaska.  She was a lead author on the “Human Health” chapter of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, and the “Human Health” chapter for the U.S. Synthesis and Assessment Product “Analyses of the Effects of Global Change on Human Health and Welfare and Human Systems.”  She has edited fours books on aspects of climate change and has more than 80 publications.  Dr. Ebi’s scientific training includes an M.S. in toxicology and a Ph.D. and a Masters of Public Health in epidemiology, and two years of postgraduate research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

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