Climate Change Adaptation: Building on Experiences in Ethiopia

Abstract

The Global climate is changing; and the change is coming in the forms of
temperature change, precipitation change, sea level rise. and extreme events.
Clinuue change affects ecosystems, water resources, food security, and human
health. There are two options for camba/ing Ithe change: mitigation and
adaptation. Since mitigation, the reduction of greenhouse gas emission is the
responsibility mainly of the rich countries and they are hesitant about doing so;
and since enough greenhouses gas has been released already 10 make reversal of
climate change impossible in the near future, adaptation hils become an
indispensable option. Adaptation /0 ciimtlle is nor new to humanity. It has been
undergoing spontaneous adaptations, to various fUmaric conditions, throughout
its existence. There have also been planned adaptation experiences in many
countries that faced climate or related variability and disasters. Ethiopia is one of
these countries which have experiences of policy making and institutional
arrangements to respond to climate variability and drought luzzards for nearly half
a century, on which it can build on future climate c~e adaptations, Tbi1..M a
qualitative research paper: which is baSed mainly 0; document analysis and the
author'S observations and experiences. First, it eiabora1es on the merits of
iulaptation eiperiences, concept of climate change adaptation, and determinants of
climate change adaptalion; and second, it presents a critique on NAPA·Ethiopia,
and discusses the adaptation experiences in Ethiopia based on the analytic
f ramework fonnulated from the assemblage of. the climate change impact
categories, climale change manifestalions, nature of impacts of each climate
change manifestation on each climate change impact categories, possible
adaptaJion actions, and atiaptaJion determinants.