Capacity Building Definitions

• Adaptive Capacity is the potential of a system to adjust to change (including climate variability and extremes) to moderate potential damages, take advantage of opportunities, and cope with consequences.
• Resilience includes the capability to anticipate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from significant multi-hazard threats without major disruption to social well-being, economy, and environment.

Extreme weather and climate events can escalate to disasters for vulnerable communities and systems, both human and natural. Weather- and climate-related disasters have social as well as physical dimensions. As a result, disaster risk is affected by changes in the frequency and severity of physical events and by diverse and dynamic patterns of exposure and vulnerability.

Research demonstrates that both mitigation (efforts to reduce future climate changes) and adaptation (efforts to reduce the vulnerability of society to climate change impacts) are needed in order to minimize the damages from human-caused climate change and to adapt to the pace and magnitude of changes that will occur. There is mounting evidence that risk and vulnerability of indigenous peoples in the United States will increase substantially unless global emissions of heat-trapping gases are greatly reduced.