Climate change: Coping versus adapting

People often use “coping” and “adapting” interchangeably in the context of disaster response - an issue the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) seeks to address in its new report. 

Disaster risk management includes both coping and adapting, and the two concepts are central for adaptation to climate change in both research and practice, says the IPCC in the full-length version of its special report entitled Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX). 

The Oxford English Dictionary defines coping as “the action or process of overcoming a problem or difficulty” or “managing or enduring a stressful situation or condition”, and adapting as “rendering suitable, modifying”. 

Coping is a "way of responding to an experienced impact with a shorter-term vision (for example, one season), and adaptation is the process of adjusting to change (both experienced and expected), which is longer term (for example, over a decade or longer),” explained Lisa Schipper, senior scientist with the Stockholm Environment Institute and lead author of one of the SREX chapters in an email to IRIN.