Climate Week
2021 | Climate
Conference | Climate
Change Conferences | Global
Warming Meetings
Climate change risk
management approaches generally fall into four broad categories: 1)
mitigation—efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; 2) adaptation—increasing
society’s capacity to cope with changes in climate; 3) geoengineering or
climate engineering—additional, deliberate manipulation of the earth system
that is intended to counteract at least some of the impacts of greenhouse gas
emissions; and 4) knowledge-base expansion—efforts to learn and understand more
about the climate system, which can help support proactive risk management. By
reducing emissions, mitigation reduces society’s future contributions to
greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. Ultimately, this can help
reduce the amount that climate will change and thereby increase the potential
that societal impacts will remain manageable. None of the risk management
options is mutually exclusive. Indeed, comprehensive climate change risk
management almost certainly includes a combination of policy responses.