Scaling up climate change adaptation & mitigation practices

Human beings have been adapting to the variable climate around them for centuries. Worldwide local climate variability can influence peoples' decisions with consequences for their social economic political and personal conditions and effects on their lives and livelihoods. The effects of climate change imply that the local climate variability that people have previously experienced and have adapted to is changing and changing at relatively great speed (UNFCCC 2007). Climate change is unequivocal as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level (IPCC 2007). As indicated in the report of IPCC global warming will continue and accelerate. The best estimates indicate that the Earth could warm by 3° C by 2100 (IPCC 2007). Continuing climate change at current rates will pose increasingly severe challenges to development. Left unmanaged it will compromise the well-being of current and future generations. It becomes recognized as a global sustainable development challenge with strong social economic and environmental dimensions (World Bank 2010).