This book chapter warns against focusing adaptation too narrowly on technological options, rather than looking more broadly at the drivers of vulnerability.
Technology can play a major part in reducing vulnerability to climate change. It can advance climate adaptation by developing and conveying information, by supporting planning and decision-making, and by confronting climate-related risks. However, technology by itself is not a panacea: the effectiveness of a particular technological adaptation measure depends on local and national circumstances, including the biophysical setting and the economic, institutional, legal and socio-cultural contexts in which it is deployed.
Unless the technology’s design and use is part of a broader strategy that acknowledges uncertainty and addresses the underlying drivers of people’s current and future vulnerability, the chapter argues, technology can become part of the problem rather than the solution.
Note: The article draws from a chapter with the same title, published in the book Climate: Global Change and Local Adaptation (Springer Verlag, 2011).
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