Adapting to Climate Change: No Time to Waste

This briefing by Mohamed El-Ashry for the World Resources Institute outlines four guiding principles for climate adaptation strategies to ensure that economic development and poverty alleviation are not compromised by climate risks. The author emphasizes that the world's poorest populations, particularly in rural Asia and Africa, are the most vulnerable and require urgent international support to build resilience and protect public health.

• The author proposes four core principles to guide adaptation strategies: Scale (matching responses to the number of people in danger), Speed (acting urgently as climate change is occurring faster than predicted), Focus (managing risk and building resilience for the poorest citizens and their ecosystems), and Integration (managing the synergies and trade-offs between mitigation and adaptation).
• Climate change threatens to slow or reverse progress toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), specifically by creating new threats to public health, nutrition, agricultural production, food security, and water security.
• The most vulnerable populations are the world's poor, who contributed the least to emissions but have the lowest capacity to adapt. Approximately 70 percent of the world's poorest people reside in rural areas, with a particular concentration in Africa and Asia where subsistence farmers rely on rainfall.
• Adaptation must be anticipatory rather than reactive, integrated into national frameworks for sustainable development and poverty reduction, and led by national governments to ensure public acceptance. The international community is responsible for providing the necessary resources and skills to these countries.

APA

El-Ashry, M. (2010). Adapting to Climate Change: No Time to Waste. World Resources Institute. https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/2023-02/wrr-2010-11-question-7-response-4.pdf

Chicago

El-Ashry, Mohamed. Adapting to Climate Change: No Time to Waste. World Resources Institute, 2010. https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/2023-02/wrr-2010-11-question-7-response-4.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=El-Ashry |first1=Mohamed |title=Adapting to Climate Change: No Time to Waste |publisher=World Resources Institute |date=2010 |url=https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/2023-02/wrr-2010-11-question-7-response-4.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{elashry2010adapting, author = {El-Ashry, Mohamed}, title = {{Adapting to Climate Change: No Time to Waste}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, year = {2010}, url = {https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/2023-02/wrr-2010-11-question-7-response-4.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }