Adaptation or how to react to the effects of climate change
Today no one, or almost no one, denies that climate change is here and that its effects will be with us for many years to come. Even if all the countries, companies and people of the world were to agree once and for all to drastically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, the effects of years of industrialisation and unlimited resource consumption would be felt for decades to come.
It is striking how extraordinary weather phenomena such as torrential rains, extreme cold waves, endless droughts or explosive forest fires are becoming more and more familiar, and we even seem to be getting used to seeing their effects sweep away the progress built up over the years, as well as the lives of hundreds of people.
Faced with all these adversities, we have no choice but to act by seeking solutions or measures to better cope with their effects and move forward. It is necessary to analyse which climate variables threaten us and what damage they are causing or may cause us in the future. Let's identify our weaknesses and find ways to be stronger, more robust and more resilient.
This is what adaptation is all about. When we are able to pinpoint what we can do to better resist the effects of climate change and bring it to fruition, we are not fighting the root of the problem but alleviating its symptoms, making its effects less damaging to us, our assets and society at large.
When we are able to pinpoint what we can do to better resist the effects of climate change and bring it to fruition, we are not fighting the root of the problem but alleviating its symptoms, making its effects less damaging to us.”
Yolanda Fernandez Montes
Director of Environment, Sustainability, Innovation and Climate Change at EDP
In 2019, EDP already started working on an initial set of measures to make our organisation a more robust company that is stronger in the face of climate effects. This set of measures constitutes the Adaptation Plan detailed for each EDP platform. The Plan is under continuous review, incorporating creative solutions that allow us to continue to generate wealth around us.
Planting trees that fix the ground and prevent landslides from damaging our assets, implementing building solutions that modify existing assets to make them more resistant to wind, water or ice, or analysing new situations arising from extreme conditions that may endanger the lives of our employees and remedying them are some of the measures that are on the table and are gradually making us stronger.
Making the necessary transformations is a significant effort, which requires all of us to contribute, identifying the effects of climate change on our environment, analysing possible solutions and, above all, working to implement them.
But adaptation is also an economic problem. The effects of climate change are being felt worldwide, but especially by those with the least resources to cope. This is why the upcoming UN Climate Change Summit in Egypt (COP27) must finally solve a major problem: define and enable the necessary tools, mainly financial, to enable the most underprivileged economies to start fighting the effects of climate change.
Time is running out, and we urgently need to find a way forward. EDP will be at COP27 and will do its utmost to make change possible, aware that time is against us.
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