Climate change is already affecting Connecticut and the impacts will grow more severe over time.  Because there is a significant time lag between increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and increased global mean temperatures, global mean temperatures are projected to increase over the next several decades even if emissions were cut drastically today.  For this reason, adaptation to climate change is critically important.

Adaptation refers to efforts to respond to the impacts resulting from climate change.  It requires efforts to assess the impacts Connecticut will face from a changing climate, the risks that impacts will impose on social and natural systems, the capacity of these systems to adapt, and the strategies that we can use to proactively tackle these challenges.   Adaptation efforts aim to enhance the resilience of people, communities, the built environment, and natural systems so that they are better able to withstand and rebound from changing climates and extreme weather events.

A focus on adaptation does not mean a lessened focus on mitigation (i.e., efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions).  According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “adaptation alone is not expected to cope with all the projected effects of climate change, and especially not over the long term as most impacts increase in magnitude.”  Indeed, a focus on the risks we face from climate change, and the difficulties that many systems will have adapting, serves to once again underscore the need to directly counter the causes of climate change through mitigation efforts.

Connecticut is taking the following steps to address adaptation:

• The GSC Adaptation Subcommittee
  The Governor’s Steering Committee on Climate Change  formed an Adaptation Subcommittee in December 2008 to assess climate impacts on Connecticut and develop statewide adaptation strategies.
• Groton, CT Coastal Climate Adaptation Workshops
  With support from the EPA’s Climate Ready Estuaries program,the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’s Long Island Sound Program facilitated a three-part workshop series in 2010 designed to help engage representatives from federal, state, and municipal governments in climate adaptation efforts and to begin defining strategies for maximizing resilience to coastal impacts throughout Connecticut and the Northeast.  View meeting notes, presentations, and the final report with recommendations for all communities from the Groton Coastal Climate Adaptation Workshops.
• Facing Our Future Fact Sheets
  The Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection has developed a series of initial climate adaptation fact sheets, Facing Our Future, that detail current observations and provide some cursory recommendations for alternative approaches to foster adaptation at the local and regional levels.  These fact sheets address overlapping technical areas or categories: biodiversity and habitat, fisheries, forestry, infrastructure, natural coastal shoreline environment, outdoor recreation, water resources, and wildlife.
• Sentinel Monitoring of Climate Change for Long Island Sound is a bi-state and federal effort to compile and use historic monitoring to track what is happening in LIS. Since the 1980’s, sea level rise has accelerated and water temperatures have risen in Long Island Sound, beyond background levels that had remained constant since the beginning of the last century. Strategic Plan with Indicator Table
• CHAMP, the Coastal Hazards and Management Planning section of the DEEP website contains choose your own inundation from SLR scenarios for all CT towns and information for what towns and the public can do to address coastal hazards.
• Climate Groups: CT DEEP has a Municipal Climate Change Network of towns and state staff who are moving forward with cutting edge climate efforts, and a CT Climate Education Communication Committee which is a varied group of educators from the private, government and academic sector who meet virtually or in person every month to keep informed on best available science and educational practices.