Policies of Adaptation to Climate Change in Developing Countries

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Economy - Environment economics, grade: 9, University of Marburg (Institute for Co-operation in Developing Countries), course: Climate Change, Economic Challenges, and the Economics of Stabilization in Developing Countries - The 'Stern Review' and beyond, language: English, abstract: Climate change is happening, even if it isn´t induced by greenhouse gas emissions. This fact is by now relatively undoubted. One possible answer is to mitigate emissions which is already tried through the Kyoto protocol for example. But even if these measures are successful, they will be effective only with a considerable time lag. Accordingly the world will inevitably face changed climate conditions and is already facing them today. This led to the realization that adaptation to climate change is necessary. This fact is particularly from importance to developing countries. Current observations and projections show that they are the ones most affected by the impacts of climate change even though they are the least prepared. Adaptation policies designed especially for developing countries are necessary to enable them to withstand the adverse effects of a changing climate the best way possible. This paper will focus on how those adaptation policies should look like and what needs to be considered. In the beginning a general introduction to adaptation will be given including its role and perspective in respect of climate change. Then I will continue by discussing the relationship between developing countries and climate change in general. Afterwards I will investigate in the main part what policies of adaptation are needed in developing countries and what should be considered when integrating adaptation into other policies. The paper ends with a summarizing conclusion.