Anand Patwardhan, Coordinating Lead Author, Working Group 2 – Decision-Making, IPCC talks about the importance of improving the state of knowledge on climate change.

Patwardhan says one of the ideas that has been borne out of the IPCC’s recent 5th Assessment Report has been the notion of risk management. He says climate change should be thought of as an issue of managing risk as risk is a useful lens to assess international responses to climate change.

The international community does not yet have all of the information it needs yet to make effective decisions, says Patwardhan, and therefore a robust institutional framework that deals with adaptation is needed as well as a collective response from individuals, households, communities and countries.

Patwardhan adds, one of the challenges that remains is how national decision-making can support local decision-making.

For Patwardhan, the multilateral process needs to focus on both adaptation and mitigation initiatives and viewing it as a “trade off” between the two of them is not helpful to the international effort against climate change.