Mitigation limits future climate change. Adaptation reduces its harm. Effective climate action also protects livelihoods and shares costs fairly.
Mitigation reduces greenhouse-gas emissions or increases their removal by sinks. Adaptation changes systems or behaviour to reduce harm from actual or expected climate change. Both are needed. Adaptation addresses risks already present or unavoidable; mitigation limits future risks and makes adaptation more manageable.
Climate change is a threat multiplier when it worsens an existing problem. Drought deepens water scarcity where supplies are already unreliable. Heat adds to health risks in poor housing. Floods can destroy livelihoods already weakened by poverty. The effects depend on local conditions.
Sustainable development meets today's needs while protecting future generations' ability to meet theirs. Repeated climate damage can divert money from schools, healthcare and infrastructure into recovery. Disadvantaged communities and developing countries may face costs that are especially large compared with their resources. Climate-sensitive livelihoods add to this burden, although capacity varies within every country.
Climate action can bring other benefits. Cleaner power can improve air quality, efficient buildings can lower bills, and shade can improve public spaces. Poorly planned action can also cause harm: an energy project may displace residents, or protection may reach one neighbourhood while leaving another exposed.
Check how measures work together. Desalination improves water security during drought but uses energy. Carbon-intensive electricity would add emissions; efficiency and lower-carbon power reduce that trade-off. Judge who benefits, who pays and how long the measures can work.
Step by step
Reduce causes
Mitigation cuts emissions or increases greenhouse-gas removal.
Reduce harm
Adaptation helps people cope with actual or expected impacts.
Protect development
Both can support livelihoods, but costs and benefits need to be shared fairly.
Worked example: A threat multiplier, step by step
A household already spends much of its income on food. Drought reduces harvests and raises food prices, leaving less money for healthcare. Climate stress has multiplied an existing vulnerability; the result depends on income support and access to alternative food supplies.
Watch out for this
Once a city adapts, it no longer needs to reduce emissions.
Adaptation has costs and limits. Mitigation helps keep future change within conditions that communities can manage.
Check your understanding
Which plan best shows mitigation and adaptation working together?
- Build a sea wall and assume greenhouse-gas emissions have fallen.
- Reduce emissions and cancel all preparation for current floods.
- Reduce power-sector emissions while improving protection for flood-exposed residents.