Experts to share good news on adaptation to climate change in Africa and Asia

While rich governments make slow progress on climate change, poor people in the countries most at risk are providing rare good-news stories by taking charge of their destinies and preparing for the impacts ahead.

Their experiences will be shared on 24-28 February in Bangladesh at an international meeting at which policymakers will be urged to do more to support communities' efforts to adapt to climate change.

About 100 experts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), UN Food and Agriculture Organization, World Health Organization, Red Cross / Red Crescent, and organisations from Africa and Asia will attend the event.

"Communities in developing countries are already feeling the effects of climate change and are taking steps in response, based in part on their traditional knowledge of the environment," says Saleemul Huq, head of the climate change group at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

"They are in a race against time to understand their vulnerabilities to climate change and to adapt to its impacts."

The meeting in Dhaka, organised by IIED, the Bangladesh Centre of Advanced Studies (BCAS) and the RING Alliance, will be used to share the latest findings from adaptation programmes that are underway around the world.

It will include presentations on communities adapting to heat waves in mountainous areas of India; floods in Bangladesh and Nepal; drought in Kenya; soil salinity in Sri Lanka; and health problems in Zimbabwe.

"The international policy agenda needs to focus as much on adaptation to climate change as on reducing greenhouse gas emissions," says Huq. "Even if emissions stopped tomorrow, the Earth is already committed to some degree of dangerous climate change. Poor communities are not sitting on their hands but are designing and implementing strategies to limit the threats they face. Their efforts need greater support from the international community."

Huq, who is a lead author of a forthcoming IPPC report on adaptation to climate change, adds that the media has a key role to play in spreading accurate information about climate change and ways of minimising its impacts.

The meeting will include two days of visits to see how local communities in Bangladesh are learning about and adapting to climate change. These will include projects being run by nongovernmental organisations CARE and Practical Action, which are working communities at risk of coastal and river flooding.

"Bangladesh has much to teach other countries about coping with climate-related problems," says Atiq Rahman, executive director of BCAS. "Local people have developed traditional approaches to minimising their risks from floods and droughts, for instance. These are relevant to people in other parts of the world."

The meeting is being funded by the British High Commission in Dhaka; the Commonwealth Foundation; Practical Action; the Swedish International Development Agency; SouthSouthNorth; the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; and the UK Department for International Development.

The workshop website is: http://www.bcas.net/2nd-cba/index.html

For more information, including abstracts of presentations, or to arrange an interview, please contact:

Mike Shanahan

Press Officer

International Institute for Environment and Development

Email: mike.shanahan@iied.org

Tel: +44 (0)20 7872 7308

Fax: +44 (0)20 7388 2826

http://www.iied.org

NOTES TO EDITORS

The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) is an independent, non-profit research institute. Set up in 1971 and based in London, IIED provides expertise and leadership in researching and achieving sustainable development (see: http://www.iied.org).

The Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS) is an independent, non-profit, non-government, policy, research, and implementation institute working on sustainable development (SD) at local, national, regional and global levels (see: http://www.bcas.net/AboutBCAS/About_Index.html).

The RING (Regional and International Networking Group) Alliance is a global alliance of research and policy organisations that seeks to enhance and promote sustainable development through a programme of collaborative research, dissemination and policy advocacy (see: http://www.ring-alliance.org/welcome.html).