Lessons Learned from Practical Cases of Adaptation to Climate Change in Industrialised Countries

We know that adaptation is necessary to avoid or reduce the impacts resulting from climate change, also in industrialised countries. Climate change is already occurring due to past emissions and is expected to increase due to the lack of success in climate mitigation policy. What we want to know now is: how and when should we act in order to adapt effectively? Because of the great diversity of adaptation situations in terms of climate change impacts and vulnerabilities, adaptation options, actors and socio-economic and geophysical contexts, this question cannot be answered with a simple one-size-fits-all solution.