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When climate scientists use the word adaptation, they are referring to actions intended to safeguard a person, community, business or country against the effects of climate change. Its complement is mitigation--any measure that will reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, such as drawing power from a wind turbine rather than a coal-fired power plant. Mitigation addresses, if you will, the front end of the global-warming problem; by cutting emissions, it aims to slow rising temperatures. Adaptation is the back end of the problem--trying to live with the changes in the environment and the economy that global warming...
...Pearl River Tower, under construction in Guangzhou, China, is aiming for a net energy footprint of zero by relying on such features as on-site wind turbines and recovery and recycling of condensed water. In Paris, a new tower will rely on wind turbines to provide its heating and cooling for the equivalent of five months of the year. And if you're a corporation planning a skyscraper, don't assume you can't afford to go green. The new buildings typically cost about 5% more to construct than conventional ones but quickly exceed that outlay in energy savings...
Take General Electric. Its Ecomagination initiative centers on a line of 45 green products, including wind turbines and next-generation jet engines that go easy on the earth but land nicely on the balance sheet. Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt set a goal of generating more than $20 billion in revenue from Ecomagination by 2010, and by 2006 the company had hit the $12 billion mark...
...bankroll the installation of more efficient equipment in factories. Barbara Finamore of the China Clean Energy Program estimates that this could eliminate the need for 3,000 new power plants over the next few decades. China also imposes higher taxes on large cars than on small ones; subsidizes wind, solar and other renewables; and has passed a law that aims to make 15% of the country's power come from renewables...
India is further behind China in developing renewable-energy sources, but the need for power is spurring innovation. India has an aggressive solar and wind industry, with one company, Suzlon, generating $1.5 billion in wind-turbine revenue in 2006. But India, with its less-developed economy, cannot as easily afford the cost of going green--or at least greener. "The Indian government has not taken the problem seriously," says Steve Sawyer, a policy adviser for Greenpeace International...