Some adaptation methods require social or political action. Others involve people having to adapt by changing their own behavior. But most methods of adaptation will involve technology -- both "hard" technology, such as building sea-walls and also "soft" technology, such as implementing crop rotation patterns. The technology doesn’t need to be high-tech and expensive. But it does have to start being implemented soon.

DW-Radio talked to Florin Vladu, a Program Officer with the UNFCC Secretariat’s Adaptation, Technology and Science Program about adaptation.

DW-Radio: How important is technology is in the battle against climate change?

Florin Vladu: Technology is important and it was always important. Technology was used for thousands of years to adapt to climate variability, such as to protect people from storms, floods, droughts and so on. In the case of climate change, the issue is how to extend existing technologies to improve their capabilities so they will address the additional stress from climate change. One has also to realize that technologies alone will not solve the problem. It’s not only an issue of investing -- of throwing money at some technologies -- to solve the issue. People have to change their way of doing things.

Could you give an example of the different types of technologies that can be used?

The straightforward classification we have is hard technologies and soft technologies. In hard technologies I would include, for example, irrigation technologies, seawalls, dykes. And you can have also soft technologies such as teaching people how to rotate their crops. And you can have technologies which involve both hard and soft technologies such as remote sensing with the satellite early-warning systems which will have both elements. An interesting technology is the one to restore coral reefs with Biorock. This will involve constructing a kind of metal frame which is connected to a solar panel - this construction will stimulate the growth of coral. So you can have a kind of artificial coral reef with this technology which is interesting.

Do technologies have to be adapted specifically for different countries or are technologies being rolled out that can be used all around the world?

Technologies, of course, developed in one place could be used in other places but in the case of adaptation one has to be very, very careful. It’s a common situation that these conditions are different from region to region so one has to consider existing technologies in other parts but with very careful consideration of conditions.

How difficult is it to introduce people to the concept of using technologies and to educate them how to do that?

It’s an important element of our work because the beneficiaries of these technologies are mainly local communities. And it is those people who are living very close to nature, so passing the message has to be done in a particular way, it has to be adapted to their capability of accessing information.

Would you say that there is a risk of a divide developing between countries that can afford to implement the technologies and poorer countries that maybe left behind and yet are obviously as at risk of the effects of climate change?

Yes, I would say there is such a risk. Developing countries will be the most vulnerable to climate change from two points of view. One is their geographical location. Many of them are located in low-lying coastal areas and have already experienced floods and droughts. The second is that they have less economic power to cope with climate change. So the convention recognizes this and is taking responsibility and trying to provide support to those countries which are vulnerable.

Is technology really the answer because, surely, in the long-term none of these will really be able to stand up to the force that is climate change?

Yes, the convention recognized this and countries are making commitments to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases they emit so that in future the stress on the climate will be reduced. In the long-term, mitigation should provide the answer and reducing those emissions is crucial.

So, there’s still a lot of work to be done?

Yes, there’s still a lot of work to be done.