With COP30 taking place this month in Belém, adaptation to climate change is highlighted as one of the central themes of the conference. But what does it really mean to adapt to a changing climate? And how does this concept relate to resilience, a term also frequently used in climate discussions?
Adaptation refers to the concrete actions we take to adjust our lives to the effects of climate change. These are practical and urgent measures: building flood barriers, installing new irrigation systems, planting trees to cool urban areas. In Bangladesh, for example, farmers have replaced chickens with ducks in flood-prone areas, a simple but effective solution, since ducks swim during floods. Here in the Amazon, in the Tapajós-Arapiuns Extractive Reserve, the Tupinambá indigenous people are transforming areas degraded by forest fires into social forests, combining natural regeneration with the planting of species useful to communities, such as açaí and cocoa.
Resilience, in turn, is our ability to anticipate climate shocks, face them, and recover with minimal damage. It is a broader vision that requires systemic changes in policy, infrastructure, education, and planning. It is not enough to react: we need to strengthen communities with the social, economic, and environmental capacity to absorb and overcome crises.
This distinction is important because adaptation can either strengthen or undermine resilience. Large engineering works, such as dams, can create a false sense of security and reduce other prevention strategies. Farmers who invest heavily in irrigation may be reluctant to abandon it even when it becomes inefficient. This happens because we tend to value what we have already spent more than new alternatives: those who have invested a lot of money and effort in a particular solution are reluctant to change it, even when it no longer works well. Therefore, resilience combines three essential capacities: absorbing immediate impacts, adapting to change, and, when necessary, transforming deep structures. While adaptation seeks adjustments within the existing system, transformation requires radically rethinking how we organize cities, produce food, and live.
Some examples illustrate this difference well. An adaptation strategy informed by resilience thinking is not limited to building walls: it analyzes risks, reduces vulnerabilities, prepares responses, and strengthens recovery capacities through environmental, financial, social, and political mechanisms. However, there are inevitable uncertainties in this process. Relocating coastal communities solves the problem of flooding, but it can make fishing unviable. Reforestation of degraded areas can recover carbon, but without restoring ecosystems, it can compromise the ecological functions of the forest. The climate changes, the economy changes, and an adaptive strategy may become inadequate over time.
Understanding these nuances will be critical in the COP30 discussions, where adaptation and resilience will be at the center of debates on climate finance and international cooperation. We need long-term, transformative, and holistic planning that goes beyond ad hoc and reactive solutions to address an increasingly challenging climate future.
Ima Vieira is a senior researcher at the Emilio Goeldi Museum of Pará and advisor to FINEP. Full Member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences
