ACCRA (the Africa Climate Change Resilience Alliance) is a coalition of just five international organisations and their local partners in three countries in Africa who realised that change is inevitable and wanted to know how we can best help prepare people for it. That's not defeatism on a climate change agenda, by the way. Just a simple recognition that even if we get the best legally binding international treaties on greenhouse gas emissions,... Read more

It remains to be seen exactly what the Durban Platform will mean in the long run, but with frustration mounting at the slow progress of negotiations despite growing evidence of adverse climate impacts, attention is turning towards alternative scenarios where the risk of litigation looms large. Whether as a  liability claim (analogous to tobacco or asbestos  litigation against business),  or as an argument in a case about... Read more

In April this year, Oxfam asked me to undertake a review of climate change adaptation practice in South Asia to help inform their work. Oxfam was interested in learning about what is already happening and how communities are responding, in order to better advocate for national climate change strategies and programmes that respond to the needs of poverty-affected women and men who are bearing the brunt of climate change impacts. These... Read more

Why is innovation important in adaptive capacity? First off, it is simply because we don't have all the answers yet; climate change poses new challenges and we don't know what will work where and for how long. Second, there's no one-size-fits-all for adapting to climate change - impacts, vulnerability and capacity to act will vary from place to place, so there is no chance of finding a silver bullet and rolling it out to the... Read more