Adapting to Climate Change

This subject focuses on climate change adaptation, and in particular its environmental, political, social and policy dimensions. It explores the ways in which climate change poses risks to human wellbeing, and the ways these risks can be managed. It draws on examples from Australia and the Asia-Pacific region, and in particular on the teaching staff’s concurrent research on climate change adaptation on small islands. It explains that adaptation and its success can be thought of and approached in multiple ways, shaped in part by existing interests and the varied and dynamic places in which adaptation is being consciously or unconsciously implemented. The subject also highlights that adaptation poses, as well as addresses, risks, and that decisions about adaptation need to be considered critically and iteratively. The subject is taught in an intensive mode. Topics include: