Urgent Action Needed to Address Climate Change Threats to Coastal Areas

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Global coastal adaptations are ‘incremental in scale’, short-sighted and inadequate to address the root causes of vulnerability to climate change, according to an international team of researchers.

Global coastal adaptations are ‘incremental in scale’, short-sighted and inadequate to address the root causes of vulnerability to climate change, according to an international team of researchers.

The 17 experts, including Prof Robert Nicholls, Professor of Climate Adaptation at the University of East Anglia (UEA), have contributed to the paper, ‘Status of global coastal adaptation’, which is published today in Nature Climate Change.

Prof Nicholls, of the Tyndall Centre For Climate Change Research, said: “Recent analyses conclude that despite adaptation undertaken in all regions and sectors, global action remains incremental in scale: policies and projects are usually short-sighted and single hazard-focused, inadequately address the root causes of exposure and vulnerability, and are poorly monitored. There is also little evidence of effective risk reduction in relation to implemented responses.”

Read more at: University of East Anglia