The Climate Change and Disaters group at IDS is active in policy-related research, advisory work and a wide range of information services which are focused on adaptation, mitigation, disasters and governance challenges flowing from climate change.
Research and policy advisory activities are organised around four key research and policy challenges for the development community:
- Adaptation: how can we ensure that communities vulnerable to the unavoidable impacts of climate change cope with the increased risks and potential opportunities a changing climate brings?
- Mitigation: can future large-scale changes to the earth’s climate be avoided by shifting to low carbon forms of economic production worldwide?
- Disasters: how can the threat of climate disasters be reduced in a period in which the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events is predicted to increase?
- Global Environmental Governance: can international policy coherence and institutional coordination be enhanced to foster collective action? Can this be done while still respecting the need for policy diversity to reflect differences in local understandings, national social, economic and political circumstances and equity?
The Climate Change and Disasters group webpage provides links through to IDS information services, including Eldis, ID21 and a media directory of IDS expertise.
The group also hosts the Linking Climate Adaptation network, which aims to put practitioners, stakeholders, researchers, NGOs and policy-makers working on climate adaptation issues in touch with each other hopefully making it easier for us all to stay abreast of climate adaptation research and practises from around the globe.