Which Strategy is More Effective Against Climate Change: Mitigation or Adaptation?

 by Alice Collins

Mitigation strategies aim to minimise and reduce global GHG emissions whilst adaptation strategies focus on responding to the impacts of climate change. The two strategies are complementary to each other and are involved in a two step approach against climate change.

Mitigation strategies are generally more long term than adaptation strategies meaning they are often unachievable before the end of the 21st century, something which hinders their usefulness as climate change is highly time sensitive. However mitigation strategies are usually cheaper than adaptation strategies, meaning they are more cost effective. One example of a mitigation strategy is carbon capture and storage (CCS). CCS is a fairly new technology which extracts CO2 from the atmosphere and stores it underground, effectively ‘locking it away’. In the UK, CCS is currently being developed by a company called DRAX which was previously a fossil fuel power plant. Today DRAX uses sustainable biomass in replace of coal, and aims to deliver negative emissions by 2027, with the BECCS strategy planning to lock away 8 million tonnes of carbon each year. Although this particular project is set to be successful, CCS technology is extremely expensive with the DRAX’s BECCS project involving >£40 million of capital investments. These economic costs act as restrictive barriers to some countries, however in comparison to some adaptation methods they are generally much smaller. This is mainly due to the fact that as time progresses, the impacts of climate change will only become more severe (most significantly with the BAU scenario) and therefore require greater costs, technology and infrastructure in response. 

However, due to the long-term approach of the majority of mitigation strategies, countries often opt for adaptation strategies instead. Adaptation involved anticipating the potential impacts of climate change (instead of working towards reducing them) and working to reduce these impacts. Adaptation strategies are generally grouped into one of three categories: retreat, accommodation or protection. One example of a retreat adaptation strategy is managed realignment which involves setting settlements on vulnerable coastlines back in land to reduce damage to infrastructure and minimise the threat to human life. However this technique has some obvious flaws, one being that it is only suitable for small settlements as entire cities cannot be moved, another being that it is highly costly and therefore is not possible in some of the world’s poorer countries. For example, 140 million people live in the Brahmaputra Delta, an area which is at high risk to storm surges and violent river floods. However despite previous storm surge disasters such as those of 1970 and 1991, the population there is continuing to grow. This shows that retreat adaptation strategies are often inaccessible to poorer regions of the world, something which is amplified by the fact that many of these poorer countries experience the most severe impacts of climate change. Generally, accommodation adaptation strategies are more achievable, particularly in EDCs and LIDCs. Agriculture is the most heavily impacted industry by climate change, and resultingly methods have been implemented to accommodate this change. Such strategies can include developing drought resistant crops and zero tillage, both of which are methods which aim to conserve water, something which is becoming increasingly important due to the increasing frequency and intensity of droughts. Protection adaptation strategies focus on physically protecting people from the impacts of climate change. This may be in terms of infrastructure, such as building sea defences to protect against flooding and storm surges, but it also involves protection against disease through methods such as use of pesticides and vaccinations against vector-borne diseases like Malaria.

Overall, mitigation strategies are the more important of the two strategies because they work towards minimising the extent of future climate change, something which will then reduce the need for adaptation methods. Adaptation strategies should only be seen as an additional method to mitigation strategies, because without mitigation, the impacts of climate change will be more severe.