C1 Reading Test – Climate Adaptation vs Mitigation: Policy Trade-offs

Read the passage and decide if each statement is True (T), False (F), or Not Given (NG).

Debates about climate policy often treat mitigation (cutting emissions) and adaptation (reducing harm from impacts) as rival camps. In practice, governments need both, but the mix depends on timescales, geography, and politics. Adaptation usually yields local, near-term benefits—think cooling centers during heat waves or higher seawalls—while mitigation primarily delivers global, long-term gains by limiting future warming.

Trade-offs are real. A fortified coastline may appear rational today yet lock in risky development behind the wall, raising future losses if storms overtop it. Conversely, a city that spends only on renewables while ignoring drainage can see neighborhoods flood before the mitigation benefits arrive. Good design searches for co-benefits: electrifying buses cuts emissions and urban air pollution; tree canopies reduce heat and improve health regardless of the global temperature path.

Finance and measurement skew choices. Donors and treasuries often prefer projects with outputs that are easy to count—megawatts added, tons avoided—while resilience metrics such as “damages averted” or “preparedness drills completed” are harder to monetize. Evaluation therefore needs multiple lenses: avoided emissions, avoided losses, equity impacts, and the capacity to adjust plans when assumptions fail.

Time also structures decisions. Discount rates—how we value the future—quietly tilt portfolios. High discounting makes distant benefits look small, which can underweight mitigation even when it is cheaper than rebuilding after disasters. Planners can respond with no-regrets measures (useful under many futures), flexible designs that can be raised or widened later, and targeted protection for the most vulnerable. The point is not to pick a winner between adaptation and mitigation, but to build portfolios that bend as evidence changes—treating uncertainty as something to manage, not a reason to delay.