NEWS

Queensland – 2010 International Climate Change Adaptation Conference on, “Climate Adaptation Future: Preparing for the Unavoidable Impacts of Climate Change” was held from 29 June to 1 July 2010.

Queensland – 2010 International Climate Change Adaptation Conference on, “Climate Adaptation Future: Preparing for the Unavoidable Impacts of Climate Change” was held from 29 June to 1 July 2010 at the Gold Coast Convention Centre, Gold Coast in Australia. The conference was hosted by the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF) and Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) of Australia.

This conference was one of the first international forums to focus solely on climate impacts and adaptation by bringing together scientists and decision makers from developed and developing countries to share research approaches, methods and results. The conference set upon the challenge to showcase leading impacts and adaptation research from Australia and around the world, to explore the contribution of adaptation science to planning and policy making, and to discuss adaptation decision making under the uncertainty of climate change impacts.

This conference brought together around 1000 climate change adaptation experts, practitioners, non-government organizations, research institutions, universities and professional organizations from over 50 countries to the Gold Coast, Australia.  There were many distinguished speakers ranging from the Australian Minister for Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Water, Hon. Penny Wong to IPCC Vice-Chair, Jean-Pascal van Ypersele to UNEP’s chief scientist, Dr. Joseph Alcamo.  

With over 500 presenters, the conference was divided into six threads: understanding and communicating adaptation; adaptation by sectors (agriculture, water and ecosystems); adapting from the grass roots (case studies); frameworks for adaptation (economics, research, industry); adaptation at the edge (coasts, deltas, small islands, disaster management); and human welfare and adaptation (community, social, equity, health).  

Even with this range of presentations, perspectives and threads, there were several key overarching points from this conference:

• the importance to explain to decision makers the limitations of adaptation to the impacts of climate change, which will give realistic expectations;

• to overcome barriers through increased capacity at all scales in particular at the local level; • the need for clear communication of the facts but not oversimplification of the technical information to increase awareness of the adaptation; 

• the integration of adaptation due to its coverage of multi-disciplinary issues from livelihoods to major infrastructure to health to disaster risk reduction to economics to food security to energy to ecosystems to sustainable development; 

• the necessity to critically analyse projects and policies to not only understand the best practices but to learn lessons from mistakes and failures as well; and 

• the sense of urgency the world has to combating against climate change impacts and the need for practical action now.  

More details of Adaptation Knowledge Platform poster presentation and about the conference can be found in Related Files or visit the conference website at, http://www.nccarf.edu.au/conference2010