Global Initiative on Community Based Adaptation to Climate Change

The Global Initiative on Community Based Adaptation to Climate Change was announced at the Third International Conference on Community Based Adaptation, which took place from 18 to 24 February 2009 in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The organisations backing the initiative include IIED, Oxfam International, Action Aid, WWF, CARE International, the Stockholm Environment Institute, Christian Aid, Caritas, the Bangladesh Center for Advance Studies, the Development Fund of Norway and many others.

They have pledged to promote adaptation at the community level as a urgent response to the threat of climate change and to generate about the best approaches to adaptation.

They will also support an online platform and a series of international conferences to enable experts share information about what works best and how adaptation strategies in one part of the world can be replicated and scaled-up elsewhere. The next conference will be in Tanzania in September 2009

The move was announced by Dr Saleemul Huq, senior fellow in the climate change group at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

"Climate change is already having serious impacts on the lives and livelihoods of people in poor communities around the world," says Huq. "These people urgently need to adapt at the community level by making changes to the way they live and work. The polluters that have caused this problem should accept their responsibilities and help these communities to adapt by providing compensation in the form of funding, technology and technical expertise."

Adaptation can take many forms, from switching to crops that fare better under drought conditions, to building flood defences and setting up early warning systems for cyclones.

As The Guardian newspaper has reported, the amount of funding to support adaptation to climate change in the world's poorest countries is woefully inadequate and just a tiny fraction of what rich governments have promised to provide.