Adaptation to climate change and variability in the context of sustainable development

In 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (unfccc) demonstrated international agreement that global co-operation is required to formulate and implement adaptation strategies. However, the development of further understanding of adaptation, and movement towards international agreement on what steps should be taken in order to facilitate it,has lagged well behind mitigation. This paper describes a variety of current perspectives on adaptation.It then moves on to report on the state of knowledge and thinking as reflected in recent research in Uganda, Antigua and Barbuda, and Pakistan. On this basis, the paper concludes with the identification of several possible approaches to the development of international co-operation on adaptation in the context of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol.