We offer contacts with companies that install fully operational solar photovoltaic systems mounted on their clients' buildings. The arrays are built at no cost to the clients. In return, the clients agree to purchase the 'green' electricity generated by the arrays at a discount off the price charged by the local utility. In short, clients have the benefit of utilizing green power generated at their own site, and saving money by buying the power for less than what they're paying now.
The stakes of adaptation
Adaptation must complement GHG mitigation because, even if states reduce their emissions, GHGs already in the atmosphere will cause temperatures to increase. One must therefore find and implement strategies to cope with the unavoidable consequences of climate change, which will include increased risk of water and food shortages, floods, spread of disease (for instance malaria) and species extinction.
Adaptation requires changes in behaviors (water use, farming practices, etc.), infrastructures and policies (management of new risks). The new technical (sea defenses, improved forecast systems…) and natural resources management choices will involve local communities as well as national and international organizations.
What priorities for action in uncertainty?
The Kyoto Adaptation Fund has been established to help developing nations –that will bear the most negative consequences of climate change – to implement measures to protect themselves.
Reflections on new risks and needs are being carried in industrialized countries as well.
New economic instruments must now be developed to ease the implementation of adaptation programs. Like mitigation tools, these instruments must integrate the consequences of climate change into economic expectations and prove efficient enough to get the broadest possible support, not only at the political level but also from private economic actors and individuals.