Foreword Adaptation to climate change is urgent. It is something that we must engage in immediately, or risk disaster. Adaptation is also not just about acting, particularly when we do so reactively. It is about planning, about development and about preparing for the world as it will be, not just as it is. Adaptation is about more than infrastructure and ecosystems. It is about people—their characteristics and resources, and how they come together in communities and countries. It is more important than ever that we understand how people, not just places, are vulnerable to climate change, and how they are and can become more resilient. This book represents the continuation of a process to create a foundation for adaptation that has people, now and in the future, at its centre by bringing together population dynamics and data with climate response. The three organizations that have collaborated to release this book—UNFPA, IIED and El Colegio de México—have spent years building programmes of work in this area. In 2010, we all came together to host an Expert Group Meeting in Mexico City on the aspects of population dynamics that focus particularly on adaptation to climate change. This book is intended to bring together the knowledge, methods and practices that emerged out of the 2010 meeting, as well as the projects and advances that have followed, to improve adaptation, particularly for those who are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. It is intended to catalyze action in global, national and local communities around a more informed, data driven adaptation process. And it is intended to bring together disparate disciplines, from environment science to planning to social science and beyond, that have been working hard but in silos to address this vital issue. The use of spatial data—growing in leaps and bounds everywhere around the world, in the public and private sectors alike—is at the core of this agenda.
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The De mogra ph y of Ada ptation to C l imate Ch ange
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