Until a decade ago, climate change adaptation was a concern mostly for vulnerable nations on the front lines of climate change, including small island developing states and least developed countries. Industrial nations, it seemed, minimized adaptation in favor of mitigation efforts.

However, the escalation of recent climate change impacts, such as the severe 2021 floods in Belgium and Germany, and the wave of hurricanes that batter the US coastline each year, emphasize the need for both climate change mitigation and adaptation in nations throughout the world.

Looking first at the ideas of mitigation and adaption, and then the contemporary need to integrate these two ideas, this webinar series seeks to understand how national governments have, or have not, addressed them. We will look at the political opposition to prioritizing climate adaptation over climate mitigation, how “agenda setter” priorities heavily emphasize one set of priorities over another, and how there is little overlap, in most nations, between mitigation and adaptation policies.

Finally, this webinar series will examine the most pressing questions facing nations in the realm of climate change mitigation and adaptation: how can nations and the international community pay to mitigate and adapt at a more meaningful level? How can fossil fuel interests and the influence they exert be reduced so that space can be made for “green” industries and interests? In the world’s most vulnerable nations, how can climate change adaptation be addressed as separate from disaster relief management, which, at present, gets the most attention?

Join any or all the following events, held virtually on the following dates:

February 10, 1:30–3PM ET: “Leading with the International” and the Stringency Gap Between Nations’ Outward-Looking and Domestic Climate Policies

February 24, 1:30–3PM ET: The European Union as Exemplary Mitigator: Best of a Bad Lot?

March 17, 1:30–3PM ET: Loss and Damage as the Third Pillar of Climate Action

March 31, 1:30–3PM ET: Understanding China’s Approach to Climate Mitigation

April 14, 2:30–4PM ET: Vulnerability, Climate-Change Laws, and Adaptation in the Middle East and North Africa

April 28, 1:30–3PM ET: Climate Policy in the United States: Reluctant or Inconsistent Engagement?

May 10, 1:30–3PM ET: The Global Adaptation Regime: Building Resilience for an Uncertain Future

May 12, 1:30–3PM ET: Who Pays for This? Can Carbon Pricing and Green New Deals be Equitable Solutions?

May 16, 3:30–5PM ET: Hard Cases for Climate Policy: Australia and Brazil
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