Chapter 4 Promoting adaptation and disaster risk reduction in the post-Kyoto climate regime

Climate change is projected to bring a range of changes in temperature, precipitation patterns, and sea level. As a result, widespread occurrence of floods, cyclones, droughts, cold and heat waves, etc. are projected with uneven distribution in time and spatial scales (Rosenzweig et al., 2007). These changes can manifest in the form of long-term slow changes in the mean state of the climate and sudden changes in the extremes of the climate (Carter et al., 2007). The sudden severe changes can have high impacts with widespread devastation, severely impacting years of developmental efforts in many vulnerable countries.