Why is the EA focus of climate change on prevention rather than preparation? It seems to me, perhaps wrongly, that preventing climate change is increasingly unlikely and the best we can really achieve is reducing the impact. Should the focus of EA therefore not be on prevention - which is the focus point of so many groups anyway - but preparation assuming the worst-case scenarios come true? This appears to be an underfunded area because people don't like acknowledging the possibility climate change can't be prevented, it seems defeatist in public policy. On the other hand the benefit of such work is very high! Does anyone have a list of effective groups tackling the problems that could happen if our current climate goals fail?
I think overall adaptation is more neglected than mitigation. There is quite a bit of work on drought and heat tolerant crops. However, there is very little work on scenarios of abrupt climate change, such as the shutdown of the thermohaline circulation that could cause abrupt cooling in Europe (and has in the past). There is also very little work on backup plans for extreme weather on multiple continents causing a multiple breadbasket failure. And there is very little work on adaption to extreme climate change that occurs slowly (over a century). ALLFED is trying to fill these gaps.