As the death toll climbs to more than 171 people killed and greater than $30 million USD in damages from recent flooding in Russia, government experts are calling for investment to help monitor and better prepare for future floods.
People and their livelihoods are affected each year because of natural disaster. The urgent need to build resilience through investment in innovation and technology can help protect communities. Click for the Reuters or Washington Post articles about Russia’s flood.
David Burwell, Director of the Energy and Climate Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, talks with GAIN about his organization’s work on adaptation, specific threats to the transport and energy sectors as well as how the GAIN Index points out the adaptation needs in countries such as Russia.
GAIN:How has your work on climate and energy evolved to include adaptation? How are mitigation and adaptation policies related?
David Burwell: It is clear that climate change is not just a threat for the future, it is a condition of every day life in the 21st century. You have to be involved in both mitigation and adaptation because the effects of climate change are happening already. We need to work to create awareness on climate change through adaptation, which then encourages more policies to mitigate.
More than 50 representatives from civil society, government, academia and business attended the Global Adaptation Institute’s presentation of the Global Adaptation Index™ (“GaIn™”) in Moscow, Nov. 3, 2011.
