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Published in:
2022 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
1. Introduction to Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation
Authors : Maximilian Lackner, Baharak Sajjadi, Wei-Yin Chen
Published in: Handbook of Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
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Abstract
Since the first edition of the handbook, important new research findings on climate change have been gathered. The evidence has further solidified, and the effects have become more visible. Both mitigation and adaptation of climate change are more important than ever before. The handbook in its presently third edition was completely updated and extended in coverage. Climate change is a fact, and aspects of “doing business in climate change” were included alongside scientific evidence on climate change, mitigation technologies – both established and novel – and adaptation measures to provide maximum benefit to its readers.
The impacts of climate change have made it into our daily lives. All human beings, in turn, can contribute to the mitigation and adaptation of climate change. Consequently, these topics are discussed in schools, in private settings, in research, and in the business world. We can see solid implications of climate change. The 2020 COVID-19 crisis has paralyzed the entire world almost instantly. Climate change is slower and subtler, but even more severe in its potential and factual consequences, where no “fix” like a vaccination exists to return to the previous state.
This handbook is more necessary than ever before.
Over the last several million years, there have been warmer and colder periods on Earth, and the climate fluctuates for a variety of natural reasons, as data from tree rings, pollen, and ice core samples have shown. However, human activities on Earth have reached an extent that they impact the globe in potentially catastrophic ways, in terms of magnitude and irreversibility. Mitigation and adaptation are the two principal routes of our responses to climate change, and they, in fact, can be best achieved collectively by world citizens, scientists and nonscientists, in our daily lives.
This chapter is an introduction to climate change and the handbook in its third edition. Current state of the arts of climate change mitigation and adaptation approaches are discussed.