Search

The European Climate Adaptation Platform (Climate-ADAPT) is an adaptation service targeted at public stakeholders in Europe, which includes some elements of a climate service. Climate-ADAPT is a partnership between the European Commission and the European Environment Agency (EEA). It supports Europe in adapting to climate change by helping users to access and share data and information on: expected climate change; current and future vulnerability of regions and sectors; EU, national and transnational adaptation strategies and actions; case studies, and tools for adaptation planning.The 2017 Climate-ADAPT evaluation has shown that the platform is mainly used by experts developing tailor-made support for decision makers in adaptation policy, planning and implementation. The evaluation recommended that the future Climate-ADAPT work should anticipate improved access to C3S and the outcomes of EU funded projects as the main focus of the content development of Climate-ADAPT. The information should be provided in a format that is easily usable by those experts, including a slight preference for synthesis information. Within a dedicated Climate-ADAPT dissemination strategy, the platform should be better promoted towards users with less experience on adaptation and to users in eastern and central European countries.Early versions of Climate-ADAPT presented information on climate change through ‘static’ indicators, which typically included pan-European time series and one or two maps of observed or projected changes. This information was useful for raising awareness of the importance of adaptation action and for providing a Europe-wide overview of specific climate hazards. As EEA’s stakeholder progressed to planning and implementing concrete actions, however, they requested more detailed information on past and projected changes in climate. In response, EEA partnered with Copernicus Climate Change Services (C3S) to develop a more interactive climate service.The European Climate Data Explorer (ECDE), jointly developed by C3S and the EEA, provides easy access to many climate variables and climate impact indicators from the C3S Climate Data Store. The tool allows users to focus on smaller regions of interest and calculates time series for specific regions; it also allows downloading images and data. It will be expanded in the future with further indices, new data sources and additional functionalities. The ECDE also forms the backbone of EEA’s first interactive report Europe's changing climate hazards.Climate-ADAPT will be significantly expanded in response to increasing policy needs expressed in the new EU Adaptation Strategy, launched under the European Green Deal, the EU Climate Law, the EU Mission on Adaptation to climate change, and Destination Earth. In this context, improving access to quality-controlled information on climate change hazards, impacts, exposure, and vulnerability data through the ECDE and the Urban Vulnerability Map Viewer is one of the top priorities of the next years. This includes improving the usability of those tools. Within the Climate-ADAPT dissemination work, those tools will be also actively promoted towards adaptation experts at all governance levels across Europe.

The Copernicus Climate Change Service’s (C3S) Climate Data Store (CDS) contains a wealth of information about the Earth's recent past, present and future climate. The CDS catalogue contains both general climate datasets, such as climate observations, seasonal forecasts, global and regional reanalyses and global and regional climate projections datasets, and in addition derived Climate Impact Indices (CII). CIIs are processed data which was developed to respond to specific sectoral needs. Most CII datasets were developed as part of the C3S Sectoral Information System (SIS) activities, which develops user-oriented products for various climate-sensitive sectors (e.g., water management, energy, biodiversity, human health and tourism).The European Climate Data Explorer (ECDE) is a new web portal providing interactive access to selected climate variables and indices included in the CDS. It is hosted on the European Climate Adaptation Platform (Climate-ADAPT), a publicly accessible web portal managed by the European Environment Agency (EEA) in collaboration with the European Commission. The ECDE aims to facilitate access to a wide range of data on observed and projected climate change in Europe. Such data are relevant, among others, for developing and implementing national and subnational climate adaptation strategies and plans, including sectoral strategies.The variables and indices currently included in the ECDE reflect user needs expressed through an EEA-led stakeholder consultation as well as data availability from C3S-led SIS contracts. The interactive access allows users to zoom in on maps in order to focus on regions of interest, show time series for specific countries and subnational regions (to NUTS level 3), and export images and data. The ECDE will be expanded further in response to user needs and increasing data availability in the CDS. This expansion will include additional sectoral indices as well as new data sources (e.g. from CMIP6).The ECDE is complemented by the online EEA Report Changing climate hazards in Europe and a Technical Paper. These products provide further information on the underlying indices and datasets. The report also presents past and projected trends for key climate hazards across Europe.The ECDE lowers the technical hurdles that limit access to CDS data for a large part of EEA’s target audience. Doing so, the ECDE supports the European Green Deal, including the new EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change, and the EU Mission on Adaptation to climate change including societal transformation.

While it is generally asserted that those countries who have contributed least to anthropogenic climate change are most vulnerable to its adverse impacts some recently developed indices of vulnerability to climate change come to a different conclusion. Confirmation or rejection of this assertion is complicated by the lack of an agreed metric for measuring countries’ vulnerability to climate change and by conflicting interpretations of vulnerability. This paper presents a comprehensive semi-quantitative analysis of the disparity between countries’ responsibility for climate change, their capability to act and assist, and their vulnerability to climate change for four climate-sensitive sectors based on a broad range of disaggregated vulnerability indicators. This analysis finds a double inequity between responsibility and capability on the one hand and the vulnerability of food security, human health, and coastal populations on the other. This double inequity is robust across alternative indicator choices and interpretations of vulnerability. The main cause for the higher vulnerability of poor nations who have generally contributed little to climate change is their lower adaptive capacity. In addition, the biophysical sensitivity and socio-economic exposure of poor nations to climate impacts on food security and human health generally exceeds that of wealthier nations. No definite statement can be made on the inequity associated with climate impacts on water supply due to large uncertainties about future changes in regional water availability and to conflicting indicators of current water scarcity. The robust double inequity between responsibility and vulnerability for most climate-sensitive sectors strengthens the moral case for financial and technical assistance from those countries most responsible for climate change to those countries most vulnerable to its adverse impacts. However, the complex and geographically heterogeneous patterns of vulnerability factors for different climate-sensitive sectors suggest that the allocation of international adaptation funds to developing countries should be guided by sector-specific or hazard-specific criteria despite repeated requests from participants in international climate negotiations to develop a generic index of countries’ vulnerability to climate change.

Integrated assessment models (IAMs) of climate change combine dynamic descriptions of the energy-economy system, the climate system, and climate impacts to support the formulation of global, and possibly regional, climate policy. Originally they have been designed to inform mitigation policy but some of them are now applied in the context of adaptation policy as well. This article reviews the modeling of climate impacts and adaptation in global IAMs, including both models with an economic focus and models with a science focus. Key advances in the representation of climate impacts in IAMs during the last decade include improved consideration of differences in impacts across regions, the development of nonmonetary reduced-form climate impact models, and coupling of global IAMs with regional and sectoral impact models to assess climate change together with other sustainability issues. Further advances include a stronger focus on probabilistic analysis and attempt at considering large-scale climate instabilities. Adaptation has received only limited attention in global IAMs so far, mostly due to the mismatch in spatial scales at which mitigation and adaptation decisions are generally made. Some recent IAMs attempt to identify optimal levels of adaptation in climate-sensitive sectors or do include adaptation to climate change explicitly as a decision variable. The main reason for the consideration of adaptation in global welfare-maximizing IAMs is to assess the sensitivity of mitigation targets to different assumptions about the magnitude and effectiveness of adaptation. IAMs with geographically explicit impact models may also provide information that is useful for adaptation planning. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website

The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) published in 2007 presents the most complete and authoritative assessment of the status of scientific knowledge on all aspects of climate change. This paper presents an updated assessment of the risks from anthropogenic climate change, based on a comprehensive review of the pertinent scientific literature published since finalisation of the AR4. Many risks are now assessed as stronger than in the AR4, including the risk of large sea-level rise already in the current century, the amplification of global warming due to biological and geological carbon-cycle feedbacks, a large magnitude of “committed warming” currently concealed by a strong aerosol mask, substantial increases in climate variability and extreme weather events, and the risks to marine ecosystems from climate change and ocean acidification. Some topics remain the subject of intense scientific debate, such as past and future changes in tropical cyclone activity and the risk of large-scale Amazon forest dieback. The rise in greenhouse gas emissions and concentrations has accelerated recently, and it is expected to accelerate further in the absence of targeted policy interventions. Taken together, these findings point to an increased urgency of implementing mitigation policies as well as comprehensive and equitable adaptation policies.

de Bruin et al. (Clim Change, 2009) report on an expert assessment aimed at prioritizing adaptation options in several climate-sensitive sectors of the Netherlands. Their results show that even in a country with high economic, institutional and technical capacity, it is not currently feasible to prioritize national-level adaptation options based on social cost-benefit analysis because of methodological difficulties and insufficient quantitative data. Multi-criteria analysis based on qualitative indicators can help prioritizing adaptation options but the analysis detected strong conflicts between priority and feasibility criteria. The specific results of the ranking exercise should be treated with caution due to weaknesses in the selection of adaptation options and the definition of evaluation criteria. The authors assert that their methods can be transferred to other regions but substantial modifications are likely required in developing countries with large current climate risks, fewer economic resources, and substantial social inequalities.

Article 2 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [United Nations (1992) http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/conveng.pdf . Accessed February 9, 2009] commits signatory nations to stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that “would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference (DAI) with the climate system.” In an effort to provide some insight into impacts of climate change that might be considered DAI, authors of the Third Assessment Report (TAR) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) identified 5 “reasons for concern” (RFCs). Relationships between various impacts reflected in each RFC and increases in global mean temperature (GMT) were portrayed in what has come to be called the “burning embers diagram.” In presenting the “embers” in the TAR, IPCC authors did not assess whether any single RFC was more important than any other; nor did they conclude what level of impacts or what atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases would constitute DAI, a value judgment that would be policy prescriptive. Here, we describe revisions of the sensitivities of the RFCs to increases in GMT and a more thorough understanding of the concept of vulnerability that has evolved over the past 8 years. This is based on our expert judgment about new findings in the growing literature since the publication of the TAR in 2001, including literature that was assessed in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), as well as additional research published since AR4. Compared with results reported in the TAR, smaller increases in GMT are now estimated to lead to significant or substantial consequences in the framework of the 5 “reasons for concern.”

This paper describes the development and first results of the ''Community Integrated Assessment System'' (CIAS), a unique multi-institutional modular and flexible integrated assessment system for modelling climate change. Key to this development is the supporting software infrastructure, SoftIAM. Through it, CIAS is distributed between the communities of institutions which has each contributed modules to the CIAS system. At the heart of SoftIAM is the Bespoke Framework Generator (BFG) which enables flexibility in the assembly and composition of individual modules from a pool to form coupled models within CIAS, and flexibility in their deployment onto the available software and hardware resources. Such flexibility greatly enhances modellers' ability to re-configure the CIAS coupled models to answer different questions, thus tracking evolving policy needs. It also allows rigorous testing of the robustness of IA modelling results to the use of different component modules representing the same processes (for example, the economy). Such processes are often modelled in very different ways, using different paradigms, at the participating institutions. An illustrative application to the study of the relationship between the economy and the earth's climate system is provided.

Planned adaptation to climate change denotes actions undertaken to reduce the risks and capitalize on the opportunities associated with global climate change. This paper summarizes current thinking about planned adapta- tion. It starts with an explanation of key adaptation con- cepts, a description of the diversity of adaptation contexts, and a discussion of key prerequisites for effective adapta- tion. On the basis of this introduction, major approaches to climate impact and adaptation assessment and their evo- lution are reviewed. Finally, principles for adaptation assessment are derived from decision-analytical consider- ations and from the experience with past adaptation assessments.

The term ‘vulnerability’ is used in many different ways by various scholarly communities. The resulting disagreement about the appropriate definition of vulnerability is a frequent cause for misunderstanding in interdisciplinary research on climate change and a challenge for attempts to develop formal models of vulnerability. Earlier attempts at reconciling the various conceptualizations of vulnerability were, at best, partly successful. This paper presents a generally applicable conceptual framework of vulnerability that combines a nomenclature of vulnerable situations and a terminology of vulnerability concepts based on the distinction of four fundamental groups of vulnerability factors. This conceptual framework is applied to characterize the vulnerability concepts employed by the main schools of vulnerability research and to review earlier attempts at classifying vulnerability concepts. None of these one-dimensional classification schemes reflects the diversity of vulnerability concepts identified in this review. The wide range of policy responses available to address the risks from global climate change suggests that climate impact, vulnerability, and adaptation assessments will continue to apply a variety of vulnerability concepts. The framework presented here provides the much-needed conceptual clarity and facilitates bridging the various approaches to researching vulnerability to climate change.

Vulnerability is an emerging concept for climate science and policy. Over the past decade, efforts to assess vulnerability to climate change triggered a process of theory development and assessment practice, which is reflected in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This paper reviews the historical development of the conceptual ideas underpinning assessments of vulnerability to climate change. We distinguish climate impact assessment, first- and second-generation vulnerability assessment, and adaptation policy assessment. The different generations of assessments are described by means of a conceptual framework that defines key concepts of the assessment and their analytical relationships. The purpose of this conceptual framework is two-fold: first, to present a consistent visual glossary of the main concepts underlying the IPCC approach to vulnerability and its assessment; second, to show the evolution of vulnerability assessments. This evolution is characterized by the progressive inclusion of non-climatic determinants of vulnerability to climate change, including adaptive capacity, and the shift from estimating expected damages to attempting to reduce them. We hope that this paper improves the understanding of the main approaches to climate change vulnerability assessment and their evolution, not only within the climate change community but also among researchers from other scientific communities, who are sometimes puzzled by the unfamiliar use of technical terms in the context of climate change.

The computational burden associated with applications of theTolerable Windows Approach (TWA) considerably exceeds that oftraditional integrated assessments of global climate change. Aspart of the ICLIPS (Integrated Assessment of Climate ProtectionStrategies) project, a computationally efficient climate model hasbeen developed that can be included in integrated assessmentmodels of any kind. The ICLIPS climate model (ICM) is implementedin GAMS. It is driven by anthropogenic emissions of CO2,CH4, N2O, halocarbons, SF6, andSO2. Theoutput includes transient patterns of near-surface airtemperature, total column-integrated cloud cover fraction,precipitation, humidity, and global mean sea-level rise. Thecarbon cycle module explicitly treats the nonlinear sea watercarbon chemistry and the nonlinear CO2 fertilized biosphereuptake. Patterns of the impact-relevant climate variables arederived form empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis andscaled by the principal component of temperature change. Theevolution of the latter is derived from a box-model-typedifferential analogue to its impulse response function convolutionintegral. We present a description of the ICM components and someresults to demonstrate the model's applicability in the TWA setting.

A critical issue for policymakers in defining mitigationstrategies for climate change is the availability ofappropriate evaluation tools. The development of climate impactresponse functions (CIRFs) is our reaction to this challenge.CIRFs depict the response of selected climate-sensitive impactsectors across a wide range of plausible futures. They consist ofa limited number of climate-change-related dimensions andsensitivities of sector-specific impact models. The concept ofCIRFs is defined and the procedure to develop them is presented.The use of climate change scenarios derived from various GCMexperiments and the adopted impact assessment models areexplained.The CIRFs presented here consider climate change impacts onnatural vegetation, crop production, and water availability. Theyare part of the ICLIPS integrated assessment framework based onthe tolerable windows approach. CIRFs can be applied both in`forward' and in `inverse' mode. In the latter, they help totranslate thresholds for climate impacts perceived by stakeholders(so-called impact guardrails) into constraints for climatevariables (so-called climate windows). This enables the results ofdetailed impact models to be incorporated into intertemporallyoptimizing integrated assessment models, such as the ICLIPS model.

An integrated assessment model (IAM) conceived in the vein ofthe inverse approach is introduced. The model is designed tohelp social actors in making informed judgments about climatechange impact targets, mitigation costs, and implementation mechanisms.Based on these normative decisions, the model verifies whetherthere exist long-term future emission paths that satisfy theuser-defined constraints. If they do, the model determines anemission corridor containing all permissible emission trajectories.An overview of the IAM is provided and short descriptions ofthe model components are presented. Forward and inverse modesof application are explained. Examples based on impacts of climatechange on aggregated potential crop production in Western Europeand South Asia illustrate how the model can be applied in differentmodes. The examples demonstrate how the inverse approach separatessocial judgments shaping climate policy from the model-basedanalysis of their implications. The examples also show the differencein climate change tolerance between developed regions in temperatezones and less developed regions in already warm climate zones.

(2002). Exploring Options for Global Climate Policy. A New Analytical Framework. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development: Vol. 44, No. 5, pp. 22-34.

Adaptation actors are generally encouraged to develop adaptation strategies that are robust in the presence of unavoidable uncertainties. However, where can they obtain information on key uncertainties relevant to their decisions? In response to this question, we review the consideration of key uncertainties in the knowledge base for adaptation planning in 14 European countries. In this context, the adaptation knowledge base is understood as information that is directly relevant for adaptation planning and which is provided by or on behalf of public authorities (e.g. through reports and web portals). It includes in particular national climate projections, relevant non-climatic scenarios and climate change impact, vulnerability and risk assessments.

Benefits policy developers and advisors, practitioners, researchers and others interested in dealing with uncertainty in climate adaptation decision-making Offers case studies from different geographical regions and a wide variety of real-life adaptation situations Presents a new support framework for climate change adaptation decisions under uncertainty Climate change highlights the challenges for long-term policy making in the face of persistent and irreducible levels of uncertainties. It calls for the development of flexible approaches, innovative governance and other elements that contribute to effective and adaptive decision-making. Exploring these new approaches is also a challenge for those involved in climate research and development of adaptation policy. Targeted specifically at policy developers and advisors, practitioners, climate knowledge brokers, researchers and interested adaptation decision-makers, this book differs from other titles addressing climate change adaptation and uncertainty by using real life cases to address distinct and pertinent uncertainties in actual adaptation situations. The editors introduce the role of uncertainties in informing adaptation decisions, showing why and how this is important, and why decisions do not have to wait until uncertainties are resolved. They go on to explore uncertainty assessments supporting decision-making on climate change adaptation, with sections on variability, uncertainty typology, climate change and projection of risks. A discussion of national adaptation planning follows with sections on sources and levels of uncertainty, communication of uncertainty and guidance for adaptation planning under uncertainty. The book provides a dozen real-life examples of adaptation decision making in the form of case studies: · Studies on water supply management in Portugal, England and Wales and Hungary · Studies on flooding, including flood risk in Ireland, coastal flooding and erosion in Southwest France and flood management in New Zealand’s Hutt River region · Studies on transport and utilities, including the Austrian Federal railway system and public transit in Dresden, and Quebec hydro-electric power · A report examining communication of large numbers of climate scenarios in Dutch climate adaptation workshops The concluding section outlines a new support framework for adaptation decisions under uncertainty, as well as guidance, recommendations and decision support for readers to apply in their own work. In the spirit of the newly adopted EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change, the book aims - as does the CIRCLE-2 project from which it emanates - to assist informed decision-making, and to provide added value through increased knowledge sharing. (Less)

We introduce climate impact response functions as a means for summarizing and visualizing the responses of climate-sensitive sectors to changes in fundamental drivers of global climate change. In an inverse application, they allow the translation of thresholds for climate change impacts (‘impact guard-rails’) into constraints for climate and atmospheric composition parameters (‘climate windows’). It thus becomes feasible to specify long-term objectives for climate protection with respect to the impacts of climate change instead of crude proxy variables, like the change in global mean temperature. We apply the method to assess impacts on terrestrial ecosystems, using the threat to protected areas as the central impact indicator. Future climate states are characterized by geographically and seasonally explicit climate change patterns for temperature, precipitation and cloud cover, and by their atmospheric CO2 concentration. The patterns are based on the results of coupled general circulation models. We study the sensitivity of the impact indicators and the corresponding climate windows to the spatial coverage of the analysis and to different climate change projections. This enables us to identify the most sensitive biomes and regions, and to determine those factors which significantly influence the results of the impact assessment. Based on the analysis, we conclude that climate impact response functions are a valuable means for the representation of climate change impacts across a wide range of plausible futures. They are particularly useful in integrated assessment models of climate change based on optimizing or inverse approaches where the on-line simulation of climate impacts by sophisticated impact models is infeasible due to their high computational demand.

The Tolerable Windows Approach (TWA) to Integrated Assessments (IA) of global warming is based on external normative specifications of tolerable sets of climate impacts as well as proposed emission quotas and policy instruments for implementation. In a subsequent step, the complete set of admissible climate protection strategies which are compatible with these normative inputs is determined by scientific analysis. In doing so, minimum requirements concerning global and national greenhouse gas emission paths can be determined. In this paper we present the basic methodological elements of TWA, discuss its relation to more conventional approaches to IA like cost–benefit analyses, and present some preliminary results obtained by a reduced-form climate model.

Many studies have assessed the vulnerability of countries, regions, and population groups to the adverse impacts of climate change in order to identify priorities for action. These studies have sometimes come to rather different conclusions on the vulnerability of different countries and the relationship between vulnerability and poverty. This chapter starts by explaining the main interpretations of vulnerability in climate change assessments. It finds that the concept of vulnerability inevitably requires normative judgements and that the seemingly inconsistent conclusions of vulnerability assessments can be largely explained by different interpretations of this term. The text continues by identifying the main socio-economic and biophysical factors that determine the vulnerability of countries to climate change and assessing their relationship with poverty. The results imply that the generally greater vulnerability of poor countries and people is due not only to their lower socio-economic capacity but also to climatic and environmental factors. Poor people generally live in regions whose current climate is marginal and many of them are directly dependent on climate-sensitive resources for their livelihoods. A global analysis, as presented here, can provide important guidance for the development of international climate policy. However, the planning and implementation of actions to reduce the vulnerability requires much more detailed information and not the least the genuine involvement of the people affected by these actions.

Climate change is a major threat to coastal populations around the world. This chapter starts by briefly describing the main effects of global climate change on coastal areas, such as the risk of flooding, the permanent inundation of inhabited areas, and salinisation of coastal groundwater resources. This is followed by a discussion of particularly vulnerable coastal types, which include densely populated river deltas, low-lying coastal cities, and low-lying islands. The main part of the chapter then presents a quantitative vulnerability assessment of all coastal countries based on different vulnerability indicators. The results emphasise the unique risk faced by the population of small island states. However, the largest numbers of people at risk from projected sea-level rise is found in populous countries in Asia. This broad picture is robust across different studies and vulnerability indicators. However, the exact level of current and future risk remains uncertain mainly due to the lack of data on present coastal protection at the global level.

Supporting adaptation to climate change in poor vulnerable countries is an ethical and legal obligation that arises from the very uneven distribution of responsibility for and vulnerability to climate change. A fair global regime for adaptation funding is needed where contributions are determined by the economic capability of countries and by their responsibility for climate change. Payments from the fund would depend on the biophysical and socio-economic vulnerability of countries, and developing countries would need to have a strong voice in all decisions. Recent estimates of the adaptation needs of developing countries are in the range of US $70–100 billion per year for the public sector. Adaptation funding needs to be additional to the current and promised level of official development assistance. Because of the strong links between adaptation and general development co-operation, a broad definition of eligible adaptation measures should initially be used. Co-funding of measures with large co-benefits independent of climate change appears justified in the case of recipient countries with sufficient capability. Climate-sensitive sectors where adaptation is particularly urgent include water supply, agriculture, coastal protection, and disaster risk management. Where adaptation in situ is not effectively possible, support needs to be provided for the managed relocation of affected populations. Industrialised countries need to quickly provide substantial financial resources for adaptation in poor countries to support urgently needed adaptation measures and to rebuild trust in the international climate negotiations.

Climate change will have major implications on the global water cycle. Precipitation will increase in some regions but decrease in others. Snow will melt earlier in the season, and many glaciers are projected to disappear during this century. Furthermore, the increasing carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere will affect the water balance of agricultural crops and natural ecosystems. This chapter assesses future changes in global water availability based on a large set of simulations with complex climate, hydrological, and ecosystem models. Some simulations combine projected changes in climate with those in population. The results reflect “best guess” projections for each region as well as the uncertainty around those projections, which allows for a better estimation of future risks to regional water availability. According to the simulation results, climate change is expected to increase total water availability in some regions and to decrease it in others, including in many currently dry regions. Projected changes are still uncertain in several regions, in particular in most of the poorest countries. However, most poor countries are experiencing strong population growth, which suggests that water availability per person will decrease in all climate scenarios. Widespread water poverty today, calls for substantial improvements in water infrastructure and water policies to ensure access to safe drinking water for everybody. In many poor countries this task is expected to become more costly in the future because of population growth and climate change.

Climate impacts on agriculture strongly depend on regional and local circumstances. While positive and negative effects of climate change on global agriculture may on average almost compensate each other, the uneven spatial distribution is likely to harmfully affect food security in many regions. Food security could be severely threatened, if tipping points in the climate system are exceeded. Developing countries in the tropics will face the strongest direct climate impacts, while having the lowest level of adaptive capacity.

Climate change adaptation assessments aim at assisting policy-makers in reducing the health risks associated with climate change and variability. This paper identifies key characteristics of the climate-health relationship and of the adaptation decision problem that require consideration in climate change adaptation assessments. It then analyzes whether these characteristics are appropriately considered in existing guidelines for climate impact and adaptation assessment and in pertinent conceptual models from environmental epidemiology. The review finds three assessment guidelines based on a generalized risk management framework to be most useful for guiding adaptation assessments of human health. Since none of them adequately addresses all key challenges of the adaptation decision problem, actual adaptation assessments need to combine elements from different guidelines. Established conceptual models from environmental epidemiology are found to be of limited relevance for assessing and planning adaptation to climate change since the prevailing toxicological model of environmental health is not applicable to many climate-sensitive health risks.