UK Economist Urges Adaptation To Climate Breakdown, Along w. Mitigation

[hatrack]

NORWICH, England - Countries should prepare policies to adapt to climate change as well as efforts to lessen its impact, a leading British economist said on Monday. "Adaptation policies have had far less attention than mitigation, and that is a mistake," Frances Cairncross, the chair of Britain's Economic and Social research council, told a conference.

The rector of Exeter College in Oxford and president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA) believes policies for a hotter, drier world especially in poor countries are needed.

"That may involve, for instance, developing new crops, constructing flood defences, setting different building regulations or banning building close to sea level," she told the BA's annual festival of science.

Cairncross added that adaptation policies would have advantages over mitigation efforts because they would not involve complicated international negotiations and they can be done at a national and even local level.

EDIT

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/37932/story.htm

[mcscajun]

1. We should be doing both...but..."adapt to win" also springs to mind

Sorry. :)