Climate change affects everything from water supply and water quality, to public and private infrastructure, to agricultural and natural resources. Within the next few decades, climate change impacts are expected to increase significantly and with potentially disastrous results. Climate change disproportionately affects poor and vulnerable populations that have limited resources to adapt. Increasing our ability to adapt to these impacts goes hand-in-hand with our need to reduce our future greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to stave off even more extreme changes in our climate.

The decisions policy-makers make today about infrastructure, land use, energy, water management, agriculture and transportation will lock into a pattern of growth that has long-term consequences. It is vital that governments and private entities act now to develop and implement climate change adaptation policies and measures. Local governments, for example, are the "first responders" to social and economic disruptions resulting from natural disasters and must anticipate, prepare for and adapt to the impacts of climate change while minimizing GHG emissions.

• CCAP established the Urban Leaders Adaptation Initiative in 2006 to help local, state and federal governments and private-sector entities across the country plan and prepare for the impacts of climate change;
• Through the Future Actions Dialogue, CCAP is working with international government negotiators to discuss how adaptation can best be addressed in the next global climate treaty; and
• CCAP is expanding its national climate program, the Climate Policy Initiative, to include adaptation policy. Findings and lessons learned from the Urban Leaders program will support this national dialogue.

Urban Leaders has released a new report! Click here to view "Ask the Climate Question: Adapting to Climate Change Impacts in Urban Regions"