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Climate Change - ADB Programs: Strengthening Mitigation and Adaptation in Asia and the Pacific

Understanding what climate change means for Canada requires addressing potential impacts and how we, as a country, can best adapt. Adaptation is a critical response to climate change, which is complementary to mitigation. Adaptation will reduce our vulnerability to climate change and allow us to take advantage of potential opportunities.

I am convinced that as people begin to see the limited performance of existing approaches to emissions reductions, and as the toll of climate-related disasters grows due to ever-increasing vulnerabilities, there will be a shift to a more short-term-focused approach to climate mitigation and adaptation.

I am convinced that as people begin to see the limited performance of existing approaches to emissions reductions, and as the toll of climate-related disasters grows due to ever-increasing vulnerabilities, there will be a shift to a more short-term-focused approach to climate mitigation and adaptation.

The IPCC was established to provide the decision-makers and others interested in climate change with an objective source of information about climate change. The IPCC does not conduct any research nor does it monitor climate related data or parameters. Its role is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the latest scientific, technical and socio-economic literature produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change, its observed and projected impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy, although they need to deal objectively with policy relevant scientific, technical and socio economic factors. They should be of high scientific and technical standards, and aim to reflect a range of views, expertise and wide geographical coverage.

Unlike the Kyoto Protocol, the BAP affirms the importance of reducing deforestation, which accounts for 17 to 20 percent of the world's annual greenhouse gas emissions, as a strategy for mitigating climate change. It specifies "policy approaches and positive incentives on issues relating to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries" (REDD) to be included in the NAMAs that countries can undertake (UNFCCC 2007, 3; FCCC/ CP/2007/6/Add.1 Decision 1). For many experts, the term REDD has become synonymous with a carbon-financing approach, in which the developing countries' reduction of emissions from forests is supported by the developed countries' purchase of carbon credits, which they can use to meet their own emissions reduction or other obligations.

"Some bold steps to make your carbon footprint smaller" Articles on Act, Eat, Invent, Learn, Live, Move, and Build