"Not only are humans not adapting fast enough to hazards created by climate change, many of the relatively limited dollars they are putting toward preparing for a warmer future are being misspent, according to the world’s leading scientists.
The term “maladaptation” runs throughout the report put out Monday by the United Nations-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — a notable shift from the last such report to evaluate human responses to climate change, released in 2014.
As the inevitability of some climate impacts has grown, adaptation has come to be viewed as desperately necessary. But the report flagged well-intentioned projects gone wrong, such as sea walls meant to protect against rising oceans that make those just beyond their borders more exposed tns that make those just beyond their borders more exposed to flooding; irrigation that counteracts drought to keep food growing, but at the same time depletes precious groundwater; and tree planting in ecosystems that were never meant to be forested."
Leslie Kaufman and Eric Roston report for Bloomberg March 2, 2022.
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