Your guide to climate mitigation, adaptation, and resilience

The APAC region is home to more than half of the world’s population and plays a huge role in the interconnectedness of the world and the global economy. It’s also especially vulnerable to climate change hazards and at risk of tsunamis, cyclones, earthquakes, and other extreme weather events.

To protect the region and its inhabitants, governments and organisations need to develop specialised adaptation plans. But to achieve this, city planners, climate experts, and government leaders need to ensure they’re aligned on key issues around climate change. And that means they need to clarify essential definitions that are often misinterpreted.

In this blog, we’ll explore three terms: climate mitigation, adaptation, and resilience.

Climate mitigation: reducing greenhouse gas emissions

Climate mitigation is the first pillar in the battle against climate change. It involves reducing greenhouse gas emissions, either by minimising the use of fossil fuels and other sources of emissions, or enhancing the sinks that accumulate and store greenhouse gases.

Mitigation is crucial to receiving funding for climate projects, and meeting global agreements (such as the Paris Agreement) and evolving legislation – which is increasingly influencing APAC countries to develop emissions reduction strategies. The ultimate goal is to achieve net zero by balancing carbon emissions and mitigation, and reducing the impacts of climate change.

Climate mitigation measures often include technologies, processes, or practices, for example introducing renewable energy and waste minimisation processes, and encouraging the use of public transport. These types of changes are a vital step in meeting ambitious climate and sustainability targets.

But before you can begin to mitigate your emissions, you need to measure them with a greenhouse gas emissions inventory. Without a greenhouse gas emissions baseline, how will you know if you’ve reduced them?

By using a recognised set of standards, you can more easily identify, monitor and report on your emissions. The TCFD recommendations, for example, can help you deliver accurate reports and stay compliant with incoming regulations – but deciding how to reduce emissions is still up to you.

Climate adaptation: preparing for the future

While mitigation addresses ongoing greenhouse gas emissions, climate adaptation focuses on preparing for the inevitable changes that come with climate change – projecting and adapting to temperature changes, storms, rising sea levels, and other environmental factors at specific points in the future.

In particular, APAC countries are already suffering the impacts of climate change, so climate adaptation is crucial to predict hazards and safeguard communities and assets against inevitable impacts.

To understand potential future climate scenarios, governments and organisations rely on climate change projections and scenarios developed, particularly Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) and Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs).

RCPs are greenhouse gas concentration trajectories adopted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. There are seven pathways based on different emission projections up to the year 2100 which help organisations anticipate and mitigate climate change impacts.

At the lowest end, RCP1.9 describes a scenario in which global warming is limited to below 1.5 degrees Celsius, the aspirational goal of the Paris Agreement. In RCP8.5, greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise throughout the 21st century. It’s the highest projection but is considered business as usual – aka the likely projected future we will experience.

SSPs were created to refine RCPs, and predict scenarios based on how the climate will change in response to socio-economic indicators such as population, economy, and land use.

The two can be combined for a comprehensive idea of potential future scenarios – enabling businesses to work backwards from likely projections and create accurate adaptation plans.

Climate resilience: preparing for shocks and stresses

Climate resilience requires organisations and governments to consider factors beyond climate variables, including shocks and stresses like ageing infrastructure, population growth, urban sprawl, and supply chain dynamics. It focuses on the wider resiliency of systems and the effects climate change might have at an individual, company, community, and national level.

For example, organisations will, of course, need to adapt operations to ensure offices or factories can function despite increasing climate hazards. But they’ll also want to consider wider resiliency measures such as keeping surrounding roads open, public transport operating, and workers safe.

The wider resilience of APAC countries is essential, especially for those which play a crucial role in the global economy. And because regions of APAC are especially vulnerable to climate hazards like cyclones and earthquakes, resilience will also be critical to reducing infrastructure damage and minimising casualties.

Being a heterogeneous region with a wide inequality gap, climate resilience is also critical for the APAC region’s social resilience and political stability. Disproportionate impact of shocks on vulnerable communities, especially in economically vulnerable and disaster-prone areas, is increasingly putting people at risk of economic, social, and physical displacement. Such involuntary displacement puts further stress on the equality gap and can lead to conflict and regional instability.

Expertise to ensure you’re covering every angle

Collectively, countries in APAC haven’t been meeting global emission reduction targets – increasing the need for businesses, governments, and communities to prepare for and mitigate future climate change impacts.

To futureproof your organisation and community, it’s crucial to understand different climate definitions so you can accurately disclose your risk, meet your goals, and adhere to international targets. Without a robust understanding of what to look for, you risk assessing incorrectly and finding yourself ill-prepared for the future.

At Royal HaskoningDHV, we’re experts in conducting comprehensive climate change risk assessments and developing adaptation strategies to deliver end-to-end climate resilience journeys.

We analyse various physical hazards to ensure your assets remain resilient and that you’re covering every angle of climate mitigation, adaptation, and resilience – protecting your community while improving sustainability.

With over 140 years of engineering experience, and our combined local knowledge and international best practices, we’re well suited to understand APAC’s unique challenges, vulnerabilities, and needs – and how to address them.