For a long time, there has been an ongoing conversation around climate change. Mitigation and adaptation: which one is more important? The climate change mitigation and adaptation approaches are two key techniques in addressing climate change. Each of these has its distinct focus.
Mitigation involves actions to lessen or prevent the emission of greenhouse gases. Its purpose is to restrict the extent of climate change by addressing its root causes.
Here I am going to talk about a few strategies and cite some examples to simplify my message.
Mitigation Strategies
This can include transitioning to renewable energy sources, enhancing energy efficiency, reforestation, and promoting sustainable agricultural practices.
Mitigation Examples
Comprising various standard practices are: implementing solar power, enhancing public transportation, and developing energy-efficient buildings.
Adaptation
Unlike mitigation which involves actions that reduce emissions, adaptation focuses on making adjustments or preparations in response to the real or anticipated effects of climate change.
Adaptation aims to ameliorate defenselessness or vulnerability and boost resilience to climate impacts.
Farmer during installation of Bee Hives
Adaptation Strategies
Talking about some of the adaptation strategies can involve modifying local infrastructure, enhancing water management, and formulating early warning systems for extreme weather events.
Examples of adaptation include building flood protection and implementing agroforestry methods that involve incorporating trees into agricultural strategies. This helps in absorbing carbon, enriching the soil and boosting defence against climate change. Another one is creating heat action plans for urban centers.
In bringing my examples home, explicitly, let me use this case study of how combining both mitigation and adaptation strategies is making lasting solutions to community and environmental problems in rural Nigeria:
In many rural communities in Nigeria, traditional beekeeping practices involve burning down trees and forests to harvest honey. This method not only leads to deforestation but also kills entire bee colonies, contributing to the rapid decline in bee populations. The loss of bees, which are vital pollinators, threatens biodiversity and worsens climate change impact. Recognizing this pressing environmental and economic issue the organization embarked on a project to educate and empower local bee farmers to adopt advanced, sustainable methods for harvesting honey—methods that do not involve destroying trees or bees. One such technique RUWAI introduced is the use of a hive and smoker, which gently calms the bees without harming them. This allows farmers to safely collect honey while preserving both the trees and the bees. In the process, more trees are planted, forests and habitats protected, equipping the local people economically and ensuring effective adaptation.
With the provision of smokers and hives instead of using fire to destroy bees and forest cover, indigenous bee farmers are prevented from burning down millions of trees which contributes to mitigating climate change and ensuring food security and income for better adaptation and increasing the global bee population and biodiversity health.
Rural Watch Africa Initiative’s (RUWAI) focus is on alleviating rural poverty (adaptation) and reducing ecological damage (mitigation) by teaching marginalized people living in rural areas to enhance their resilience, incomes (adaptation), and living standards through agriculture (mitigation), skills development, and new business ventures.
The organization recognizes that addressing rural poverty is strategic to achieving success in dealing with both the causes and effects of climate change.
Breaking this cycle, the organization maintains, requires addressing both aspects simultaneously through holistic approaches like sustainable agriculture and alternative income skills generation to create lasting change.
Mitigation targets the causes of climate change, while adaptation focuses on its effects.
Mitigation seeks long-term solutions, whereas adaptation usually requires immediate, localized responses.
To ensure a comprehensive climate response, both mitigation and adaptation strategies are essential. Mitigation helps prevent further damage, while adaptation prepares communities to cope with changes that are already occurring or are inevitable.
Together, they can help build a sustainable and resilient future.