Leaders from all over the world opened in the Hague the first online international Climate Adaptation Summit (CAS) 2021 on Monday. Hosted by the Dutch government, the two-day summit aims to adopt a roadmap for a decade of transformation towards a climate-resilient future by 2030.

The participants include German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron, and the United States' Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry.

Kerry said that climate change is back as a top priority for the United States under President Joe Biden. "Without a doubt, the best adaptation is to treat this crisis as an emergency," Kerry said. "President Joe Biden has made climate change a top priority. He knows we have limited time to get it under control."

The Climate Adaptation Summit is different from the United Nations climate change conferences, which focus on limiting global warming. The next such conference is to be held in Glasgow, the United Kingdom, in November this year.

The first online CAS aims to draw attention to the effects of climate change, such as extreme rainfall, droughts, food shortages, heatwaves and sea-level rise. It is also about enhancing ambition on adaptation and underscoring the need to change along with it.

The welcoming addresses at the online CAS were delivered by caretaker Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Ban Ki-moon, former secretary-general of the United Nations, and co-chair of the Global Commission on Adaptation and current United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

"If we don't learn to deal with the consequences of climate change, if we can't adapt, the impact will be disastrous," Rutte said. "Business as usual is no longer an option for my country and others. I hope this summit will set the world on a path towards action to accelerate adaptation and resilience worldwide."

Ban Ki-moon emphasized the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic. "It showed the power of global partnership and collaboration," he said. "If we can fight this pandemic, we can do this to help hundreds of millions of people to adapt to climate change. All of us, all leaders, have to take his opportunity to save humanity."

"Support for adaptation and resilience is a moral, financial, economic and social imperative," Guterres said.

Participants in the CAS 2021 are scheduled to produce a broad Adaptation Action Agenda setting out practical climate solutions and plans up to 2030.

They will discuss climate finance, as well as how cities can be made more resilient to the changing climate, how agriculture can better anticipate droughts and salinization, and how coastal protection can keep pace with sea-level rise.

The CAS 2021 summit is open to governments, companies, scientists, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and young people worldwide in a range of events streamed from the venue.

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