Adapt to climate change, UK economist urges

NORWICH, England, Sep 4 (Reuters) Countries should prepare policies to adapt to climate change as well as efforts to lessen its impact, a leading British economist said today.

''Adaptation policies have had far less attention than mitigation, and that is a mistake,'' Frances Cairncross, the chair of Britain's Economic and Social research council, told a conference.

The rector of Exeter College in Oxford and president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA) believes policies for a hotter, drier world especially in poor countries are needed.

''That may involve, for instance, developing new crops, constructing flood defences, setting different building regulations or banning building close to sea level,'' she told the BA's annual festival of science.

Cairncross added that adaptation policies would have advantages over mitigation efforts because they would not involve complicated international negotiations and they can be done at a national and even local level.

She also suggested that governments should intervene to persuade people to use climate-friendly technologies which will reduce the output of greenhouse gases.

''Such interventions also need to signal to companies and universities that there is money to be made from innovations that cut greenhouse gas output,'' she added.

Any efforts to mitigate or adapt to climate change will be much easier to implement if the public believe they are necessary, so Cairncross believes governments must find ways to influence public opinion.

''We have to start talking of adaptation side by side with mitigation,'' she said.

''The costs of taking action are large but not unimaginable. The costs of failure may be immense,'' Cairncross added.

Climate change will top of the agenda at the week-long conference at the University of East Anglia in eastern England where more than 300 top scientists will present research on topics ranging from archaeology, anthropology and geology to psychology, physics and biodiversity.

Reuters DH GC0522