Should adaptation to climate change be given priority over mitigation in tropical forests?

Limiting warming to 2°C is critical for avoiding dangerous consequences and adaptive actions are needed to limit damage from climatic changes. There is sharp imbalance in investments in mitigation and adaptation, with the latter attracting barely 5% of the allocated funds. Adaptation is limited not only by restricted access to money and technology, but also by endogenous causes related to willingness to invest in the future, and attitude to risk taking and integration of technology. Models based on paleoecological evidence of early Holocene floral migration can be used for initiating intelligent adaptive actions. Developed countries should concentrate on transformational changes using the latest technologies through their mitigation efforts, rather than crowd out the developing countries from low-cost and low-technology mitigation opportunities in the forestry sector. Confluence of adaptation with mitigation in tropical forests is a challenge yet a possibility, and the UNFCCC mechanisms should actively encourage this overlap.