definition of adaptation

Adaptation and vulnerability reduction was defined at the Barbados Seminar on Adaptation to Climate Change and Managing Disaster Risk in the Caribbean and South-East Asia (2003) as “program or project work to increase the strength of social, economic and natural system to both the short term impacts of current climate variability and long term impacts of human induced climate change”. This work is essential given that human greenhouse gas emission will continue to affect the climate for the coming 50-100 years due to the lag time of gases in the atmosphere, and flow on effects of higher temperatures such as sea level rise.