Isra-Mart srl:Cancun Summit: Mexico unveils "world's first" climate adaptation plan

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With the negotiations to deliver an international climate change deal on a knife edge, Mexico yesterday moved to increase the focus on the urgent need for countries to adapt to inevitable levels of climate change with the release of what it hailed as the world's first national adaptation plan.

Officials unveiled Mexico's "Politic Framework for Medium-Term Adaptation" on the sidelines of the Cancun Summit, detailing how the proposals bring together actions being taken by 11 separate government institutions.

"There is urgency and need to implement adaptation plans," said Dr Veerle Vanderweerd, director of the group of energy and environment at the UN Development Programme (UNDP), which developed the proposals alongside the Mexican government.

Mexico's general director of climate change policy, Juan Mata, said the plan would require all branches of government to "assume the responsibility to coordinate and harmonise public policies to reduce vulnerability and strengthen adaptation capabilities".

He added that work to strengthen climate resilience would focus on both "natural and productive systems, as well as the country's strategic infrastructure".

A number of countries, including the UK, are currently working on formal climate adaptation plans designed to help prepare for rising average temperatures and the increased incidence of extreme weather events that scientists predict will occur over the next two to three decades regardless of whether we successfully act now to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

However, Vanderweerd insisted that "Mexico is the first country with such initiatives" fully in place.