Why Ecosystem-based Adaptation is an Excellent Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Option

Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) is gaining ground in fighting climate change, especially in developing and vulnerable countries.

Responding to climate change involves a two-pronged approach – mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation addresses the cause of climate change, particularly the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, while climate adaptation deals with the impacts of climate change.

Addressing the climate crisis would need both approaches.

A study “Synergies between adaptation and mitigation in climate change finance” by Locatelli, Fedele, et., says that international and national policies, including international financing, have separated mitigation and adaption when addressing climate change options pursue different objectives and operate at different scopes.

Here are what the study mentioned:

• Mitigation works on a global and long-term scale, while adaptation provides more local benefits and its effects range from immediate to long-term.
• According to the authors, adaptation initiatives can influence mitigation positively or negatively and vice versa, but promoting climate action that delivers both mitigation and adaptation can improve funding and reduce trade-offs.
• Ecosystem-based Adaptation is a climate approach that integrates adaptation and mitigation by utilising nature-based solutions and ecosystem services.
• Synergies between mitigation and adaptation are observed in land-related activities like agriculture and forestry. Land-use practices are relevant to mitigation because they can either release GHG into the atmosphere or efficiently store them away, depending on soil and vegetation management practices.
• Forest and agriculture are relevant to adaptation because they are vulnerable to climate change yet needed to protect communities from floods because of their capacity to retain precipitation and moderate its flow on the watershed. In the same way, mangroves protect shorelines from damaging storms, hurricane winds, waves, and floods.

The climate adaptation and mitigation offered by EbA makes it a powerful solution to address the climate crisis.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) supports over 45 ecosystem-based adaptation projects. These projects aim to restore around 113,000 hectares of ecosystems while benefitting 2.5 million people worldwide.

Click the link to know more about UNEPs EbA projects around the world.           

Annual Conference on Ecosystem-based Adaptation

The EbA Knowledge Day conference is held yearly and gathers policymakers, practitioners, donors and researchers. The conference is organised by the BMU-IKI-funded and GIZ-implemented Global Project Mainstreaming EbA in collaboration with IUCN under the FEBA network.

On 2 June 2022, the 8^th EbA Knowledge Day took place with the theme, “The Future of Ecosystem-based Adaptation:  Enhancing cross-sectoral collaboration and identifying new opportunities for long-term resilience.”