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Climate Change Resilience

Aid to Help Asia and Africa With Effects of Warming
August 9, 2007
By Andrew C. Revkin
The New York Times
Summary

The Rockefeller Foundation says it will invest $70 million over the next five years to help Asian cities and African farmers withstand floods, droughts and other global warming hazards.

Foundation officials say the help will be needed no matter what is done to limit greenhouse gas emissions, because the world faces decades of rising temperatures and sea levels as a result of a century-long buildup of gases like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Poorer communities, lacking the money or technology to deal with a ruined harvest or an eroding coastline, face outsize threats.

The Rockefeller project, the Climate Change Resilience Initiative, will focus almost entirely on limiting risks to human populations, Judith Rodin, president of the Foundation, said...the foundation would develop adaptation strategies that governments as well as international institutions, including the World Bank, could use.

“The poor in developing countries will be hit the hardest by climate change,” said Katherine Sierra, vice president for sustainable development at the bank. “For them, any contribution from any sector to help their economies and societies adapt should be encouraged. So we particularly welcome the Rockefeller Foundation’s initiative.”

Maria Blair, an associate vice president at the foundation, said the program will help [vulnerable] cities assess threats and devise tools to cut risks, including land-use plans, building codes and catastrophe insurance, she said.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

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