Adaptation and Mitigation to climate change

An example that New Zealand is taking to adapt to climate change is that the goverment is aiming to have 90% of the country's energy to come in the form of renewable energy by the year 2025. This will help to lower emissions. A second way is the government is looking into ways to lower the country's #1 source of emissions which is methane from the huge agriculture presence. They established a domestic Centre for Agriculture Greenhouse Gas Research. Their hopes are to help reduce emissions from agricultural production and improve its potential for soil carbon sequestration, while safeguarding food security (information taken from http://unfcc.int/resource/docs/natc/nzl_nc5.pdf).   Per the IPCC I found their planned adaptation opportunities for water to be interesting. They hope that better use of storm and recycled water can help augment water supply. Installing rain water tanks is another option that would help this (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch11s11-5.html).   New Zealand has ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. They signed May 22, 1998 and entered into force February 16, 2005 and have reduced emission by 0.2%.   Being that New Zealand signed the Kyoto Protocol and is working towards implementing more renewable energy sources I would say that they are taking efforts towards mitigating climate change. I feel most if not all countries should be both mitigating and adapting to climate change. It seems that reguardless of what is being done that climate change is among us. It's better to be prepared.  


Wind turbines are a useful source of renewable energy. http://c21.phas.ubc.ca/article/wind-turbines-betz-law-explained