One of the liveliest debates within the Climate Movement is the great Mitigation versus vs. Adaptation standoff.
Historically, mitigation is what most climate policy and international diplomacy has been about (how best to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by transitioning away from fossil fuels), with the adaptation lobby lurking around on the margins, pointing out (with increasing desperation) that there’s already so much climate shit hitting literally countless fans that we have to focus now on everything that needs to be done to limit the damage caused by those impacts.
The principal concern of the mitigation-first lobby was that any dilution of the collective endeavour to persuade a generation of utterly feckless politicians to get serious about emissions reduction would be really dangerous.
That concern was (and still is) legitimate. But things have moved on – and not for the good. Year after year, CoP after CoP, those feckless politicians have failed utterly, without needing any additional excuses.
If I played any part in this tediously circular debate, it was to say that there was room for both mitigation and adaptation – in terms of policy, investment, communications and so on. I still subscribe to that view, but the risk of dilution is as much of a worry now as it was then.
The adaptation imperative is a serious no-brainer. The scale of damage being done by climate-induced impacts is already so horrendous, and the economic case for investing in a vast range of ‘protect now’ strategies, rather than wait till communities and businesses are hammered by floods, droughts, wildfires and so on, is literally overwhelming!
The problem is there are all sorts of variations of Adaptation. As is well understood by the Climate Change Committee, which has a designated subcommittee on Adaptation. This is Chaired by Baroness Brown. She is the nearest thing to an establishment heroine that the adaptation lobby has ever been able to call their own, with years in the adaptation trenches, producing one excellent report after another, most of which has been systematically ignored by Ministers.
But even the messaging from the estimable Baroness Brown can be pretty wacky. In a letter to Ministers in October 2025, she warns them that we should be preparing for at least a 2°C temperature rise by 2050, and that faster rates remain possible. This is what she goes on to say: “at the high end of possibilities, reaching 4°C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century cannot yet be ruled out, and should be considered as part of effective adaptation planning”. WTAF!
The hard-edged scientific truth is that there will be no adapting to an average 3°C temperature increase (let alone 4°C), whenever we breach that dread threshold. The frequency and intensity of climate induced disasters at anything above 2.5° C will overwhelm any notion of a planned and coordinated adaptation strategy.
The first rule for anyone advocating for the priority of adaptation is NEVER, EVER, to give the politicians that you’re seeking to influence an excuse not to push the panic button on mitigation right now.
How bizarre to have to think of Baroness Brown aligning herself – in this regard – with the planet-trashing, self-serving shysters that fill the boardroom and executive suites of JP Morgan – the world’s most rapacious and morally depraved financial institution. A couple of years ago, their ludicrously overpaid investment gurus sent round a ‘client advisory’ inviting them to invest big time in Air Conditioning technologies – which they were only too happy to endorse as one of ‘the safest bets in a world that will soon be 3°C hotter than pre-industrial times’. WTAF!
The sensible end of the adaptation lobby excoriates JP Morgan as enthusiastically as I do. They’re focused on the kind of community-based, sustainable, nature-focused adaptation investments which the Climate Change Committee’s Subcommittee on Adaptation has been advocating for.
Here’s how the Climate Majority Project’s founder, Rupert Read, describes it:
“Strategic adaptation looks upstream and long term. It reduces emissions, and builds resilience simultaneously, strengthens communities and creates co-benefits that people can see and feel. In doing so, it directly confronts the ‘dragons of inaction’, those powerful psychological barriers that can keep us from taking the actions we know we need to take”.
In other words, the kind of local initiatives that widens the constituency of support for climate action, helps mobilise people on the ground, and strengthens political will. (https://www.socialchangelab.org/climate-adaptation-discussion-paper). But somehow, policymakers just don’t seem to be getting the message. I did a complete double take recently on seeing a headline in the Guardian: “Daunting but doable: Europe urged to prepare for 3°C of global heating”
This refers to a new report from the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change. It’s all the usual stuff but framed in such a way as to make European politicians feel comfortable about future adaptation strategies – referred to as ‘common sense and low-hanging fruit…. it is a daunting task, but at the same time, quite a doable task. It’s not rocket science’. WTAF!
Such drivel shouldn’t really be described as science at all.
Unbelievably, even this is not the outer range of the ‘Don’t panic school of Adaptation Insanity’. When all else fails (which it will, for sure, if we don’t press the panic button on emissions reductions right now), many scientists would still have us believe that we’ll be able to ‘manage’ the rate of warming here on earth by spraying the upper atmosphere with sulphates and other chemicals — thus, reflecting more of the incoming radiation back out again.
As you can tell, this is not some simple right or wrong debate. As I said, there’s adaptation and adaptation. I love the stuff being promoted by the Climate Majority Project. At the same time, I despair of the growing consensus on what adaptation means amongst policymakers. And I live in dread of what some of the wackier advocates for geoengineering have in store for us.
