Adaptation to Climate Change
ENVIRONMENT
In its latest report (AR6, 2022), the IPCC estimates that 3.3 billion people are living in a context of high vulnerability to climate change and that there could be an additional 143 million climate-displaced people in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia alone by 2050. That is why we are working to identify and deploy adaptation measures.
The issues
Climate change has had widespread adverse effects on ecosystems (disruption of the structure and composition of environments and the phenology of species) and human societies (reduced availability of water and food, deterioration in the physical and mental well-being of populations, risks to buildings and infrastructure, etc.). In particular, the increase in the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events has already had irreversible effects on ecosystems and human societies pushed beyond their capacity to adapt. Vulnerability to climate change is very unevenly distributed at the spatial level: for example, between 2010 and 2020, human mortality due to floods, droughts and storms was 15 times higher in highly vulnerable regions than in highly non-vulnerable regions. Furthermore, the objective of keeping global warming below +1.5°C is probably no longer achievable, opening the door to irreversible damage (tipping points), such as the disappearance of the Amazon forest. Faced with this, as the IPCC deplores (AR6, 2022), adaptation measures are unevenly distributed, too often short-term and largely insufficient.
Our services
We conduct current vulnerability analyses on a given system (territory or sector): describe the main socio-economic and natural/biophysical characteristics; identify the climate parameters to which the system is most sensitive; describe the climate changes already observed and their current impacts on the system. On this basis, we analyse future vulnerability using climate projections (from various climate models and scenarios). Finally, we identify possible adaptation options, whether endogenous (already known but not widely disseminated) or exogenous, and help local stakeholders to analyse and prioritise them (technical effectiveness? costs? social acceptability? etc.) and then to develop strategies and action plans for adaptation to climate change. As the concepts, data and tools are complex and often poorly understood, we provide ad hoc training for a variety of audiences (farmers or stockbreeders, public service or NGO agents, policymakers, etc.).
