ABSTRACT
The IPCC defines adaptive capacity as ‘the property of a system to adjust its characteristics or behaviour, in order to expand its coping range under existing climate variability, or future climate conditions’ (Brooks and Adger, 2005). Adaptation can be undertaken as a response to a climate-related problem or in preparedness for or anticipation of future climate change impacts. Enhancing the adaptive capacity of local communities to climate change implies an approach to adaptation that is anticipatory. It will be argued in this chapter that adaptation goes beyond reducing vulnerability and preparing for hazards, and involves an ongoing change process where communities can make decisions about their lives and livelihoods in a changing climate. Adaptation is undertaken by various agents, in different ways, at multiple scales. This chapter focuses on what is needed at the local scale to enable poor and vulnerable communities to have the capacity to adapt. A pre-requisite for this is to understand people's and societies' vulnerability and the underlying drivers of this, which extends beyond vulnerability merely to weather and climate factors. Adaptive capacity must also focus on addressing the political, cultural and socio-economic factors that may promote or inhibit individuals and groups from adapting (Smit and Pilifosova, 2001).
