You are here
Climate Change Adaptation (CCA)
There is no scientific ambiguity to the fact that the world’s climate is warming and that this warming over the past 50 years is attributable in part to man’s activities. There is a wide consensus that this warming will lead to changing rainfall patterns, rising sea levels, increased spread of tropical disease, loss of biodiversity and increased frequency and amplitude of weather related natural disasters. Children are particularly at risk in a disaster and vulnerable to the incremental impacts of climate change. It is essential that their immediate and longer-term survival, protection and developmental needs are considered in any activities to prepare for or mitigate a potential disaster, or adapt to the negative impacts of longer-term climatic trends. Communities and local authorities need to listen to children to find out what risks they might face and how they might respond to them.
CCA programs are activities which aim to make adjustments in natural and human systems in response to actual or expected climate change and their effects. For Save the Children, adaptation is principally about practical measures in programming, policy and advocacy which reduce vulnerabilities or increase resilience of children and their communities from the negative effects of climate change. Disaster Risk Reduction and CCA are not mutually exclusive but in fact interdependent; a CCA project may be just as vulnerable to natural hazards as any other project and therefore needs a DRR component to protect the CCA investment. To address the risks and uncertainty predicted by climate change, both DRR and CCA analysis and programming must attempt to take account of the unpredictability of what may happen in the future as the planet continues to get warmer.
Photo: Save the Children
-
Changing climate, Changing disasters: Pathways towards integration
A guide from the Strengthening Climate Resilience consortium (IDS, Plan and Christian Aid), focusing on a Climate Smart Disaster Risk Management (CSDRM) approach that offers different ‘routes’ to integration (and indicators to track progress) for agencies
-
Climate Change as a Driver of Humanitarian Crises and Response
Feinstein International Center has published Climate Change as a Driver of Humanitarian Crises and Response, which explores the relationships between climate change, humanitarian crises, and humanitarian response through a review of published and grey lit
-
Country Risk Reduction Profile: Disaster Risk Reduction in Myanmar
There are a number of hazards faced by Myanmar, including cyclones, floods and whirlwinds that cause a high level of damage, particularly to homes and shelters. Save the Children's approach to Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in Myanmar took the form of: Com
-
Cobwebbed: International Food Price Crisis and National Food Prices. Some Experiences from Africa
The paper provides an overview of what caused high and volatile prices in international food commodity markets, the major causes of national food price increases, the winners and losers within countries when food prices are high and volatile, and then loo
-
Financing Local Adaptation: Ensuring Access for the Climate Vulnerable in Bangladesh
This report explores the crucial question of how to bridge the divide between increasing sources of adaptation finance, most of which currently exist at international or national levels, and local communities at the grassroots level that are facing the im
-
Living with disasters and changing climate
Living with disasters and changing climate is about children, disaster risk reduction, and climate change. Based on Save the Children’s experience in child-centred disaster risk reduction in Southeast Asia, this book is a collection of children’s stories
-
Leaving home: Voices of children on the move
Children have become an important part of large-scale population movements both within and between countries and are likely to be increasingly affected in the next decades as a result of globalisation, socio-economic shifts and climate change. Yet, in deb
-
Hear Our Voices We Entreat!
In this report children and young people provide opinions on their lives in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The report was created for the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and is relevant to policy makers and anyone interested in the rights of ch
-
Towards a characterisation of adaptive capacity: a framework for analysing adaptive capacity at the local level. Background Note
This background note puts forward a 'Local Adaptive Capacity framework' (LAC) developed as part of the Africa Climate Change Resilience Alliance (ACCRA) programme, drawing on extensive consultations with academics, policy-makers and practitioners. It is a
-
A right to participate: Securing children’s role in climate change adaptation
The impacts of climate change are already being felt- most acutely by millions of the world’s poor. Millions are already facing hunger, disease and conflict due to climate change, and ‘children in the world’s poorest communities are the most vulnerable’.
-
Declaración para acabar con el hambre extrema
This charter sets out five key actions that governments of rich and poor countries should take to stop widespread starvation as a result of drought, high food prices and conflict. It includes ensuring that disaster risk reduction and climate change adapta
-
Exploring the Impact of Climate Change on Children in South Africa
Children are disproportionately vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The specific nature of their vulnerability is multidimensional, shaped largely by the physical, social, and emotional changes that take place over the course of childhood. These