DHAKA - While rich governments make slow progress on climate change, poor people in the countries most at risk are providing rare good-news stories by taking charge of their destinies and preparing for the impacts ahead.

Their experiences will be shared on 24-28 February in Bangladesh at an international meeting where policymakers will be urged to do more to support communities' efforts to adapt to climate change. The meeting includes presentations about Nepal, including working with flood-prone communities, a Nepali case study on how a local community has adapted to climate change, and increased disaster risk from climate variability.
About 100 experts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN's FAO and WHO, and participants from Africa and Asia will attend the event.

"Communities in developing countries are already feeling the effects of climate change and are taking steps in response, based in part on their traditional knowledge of the environment," says Saleemul Huq, head of the climate change group at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). "They are in a race against time to understand their vulnerabilities to climate change and to adapt to its impacts."

The meeting in Dhaka will also include presentations on communities adapting to heat waves in mountainous areas of India, floods in Bangladesh and Nepal, drought in Kenya, soil salinity in Sri Lanka.