For decades, climate trackers and journalists talking about adaptation were scorned: Learning how to live with a warming planet was perceived as a diversion from the goal of cutting emissions from fossil fuels. Adaptation was a cop-out, an acceptance of the blistering changes ahead.
But last month the United Nations sent the clearest message yet that it’s time to prioritize adaptation to a world being transformed by the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Every year since the U.N. issued its last assessment of the climate eight years ago, the emission of greenhouse gases has increased. The 2015 Paris climate accord set a goal of holding global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 F) of preindustrial levels. The International Panel of Climate Change’s most recent report, released last month, says warming is “more likely than not” on course to surpass that limit by 2040, even in the unlikely event that the most aggressive emission-reduction scenarios are pursued in the U.S. and Europe.
