Some countries and entities that have launched initiatives to prepare for and adapt to climate change include: the United Kingdon, Australia, the US Government under President Clinton, New York City, The European Commission & Environmental Agency, and Canada. 

The UK and Australian programs are the most thorough and have involved local and provincial/state levels of planning. Under President Bush the US has done little adaptation planning at the Federal level. Some states, such as California, are beginning with regional impact and vulnerability research, building upon one of the best Clinton-era regional reports. However, capacity development for adaptation planning, parallel to more advanced efforts overseas, is just beginning.

Governments and institutes have developed many guidelines, handbooks, and tools, usually specific to their countries. One designed particularly for North America is:
The Climate Impacts Group; King County in association with ICLEI. 2007. Preparing for Climate Change: A Guidebook for Local, Regional, and State Governments. http://www.cses.washington.edu/cig/fpt/guidebook.shtml

International

Of the international development banks, World Bank has devoted the greatest effort to climate adaptation. Since 1999 WB has developed internal investment policies, funded national action plans, and published many research reports and area surveys. Publications may be downloaded from this page.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Working Group II, has focused on climate vulnerability and adaptation. Its 2007 report is available as pdf files at: http://www.ipcc-wg2.org/index.html

The Vulnerability and Adaptation Group (VARG) "facilitates the integration of climate change adaptation in the development process through the sharing, assessment, synthesis, and dissemination of existing knowledge and experience. The target audience is developing countries, the UNFCCC process, civil society, and development agencies.
http://www.climatevarg.org/essd/env/varg.nsf/

Linking Climate Adaptation is an international  network of UN, development bank, and bilateral aid organizations. The web site http://www.linkingclimateadaptation.org includes  discussion forums, reports and conference presentations. 

AdaptAbility -- The Climate Adaptation Network: A multi-stakeholder networking platform for all sustainability professionals interested in adaptation to climate change as a complement to mitigation. The network is made up of individuals from government, business, academia, nonprofits, development and journalistic organizations.
http://www.Adapt-Ability.Net

US AID and other bi-lateral development organizations have worked to incorporate adaptation issues into risk assessment and project design and management. This Manual for developing countries is keyed to US AID program requirements:
2007. Adapting To Climate Variability And Change: A Guidance Manual For Development Planning, Washington DC http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/environment/climate/docs/reports/cc_vamanual.pdf

NOAA, in the US Department of Commerce, held an international conference on adaptation in 2003. Papers from this event are at http://www.climateadaptation.net/papers.html

Equity in funding adaptation

The 2007 report by the International Panel on Climate Change, highlighted the need for developed countries -- historically responsible for the great majority of atmospheric GHGs --to fund adaptation planning in less developed countries.
Oxfam has issued a report detailing the need: Adapting to climate change, What’s needed in poor countries, and who should pay Oxfam Briefing Paper 104 http://www.oxfam.org/en/files/bp104_climate_change_0705.pdf/download

Photo tour of global warming http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/

United Kingdon

The UK Climate Impacts Program is developing both mitigation and adaptation plans at national and regional levels. The website has a number of adaptation tools and guidelines, as well as strategic reports  http://www.ukcip.org.uk

UKCIP technical report ‘Climate adaptation: Risk, uncertainty and decision-making'
http://www.ukcip.org.uk/resources/tools/adapt.asp

Australia

The Australian Greenhouse Office home page is http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/

This web site includes many documents on adaptation to the impacts of climate change.   
http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/impacts/adaptation.html

National Climate Change Adaptation Framework (April 2007) Framework

Climate Change: Risk and Vulnerability. Promoting an efficient adaptation response in Australia. March 2005 Report to the Australian Greenhouse Office, Department of the Environment and Heritage by the Allen Consulting Group
 http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/impacts/publications/pubs/risk-vulnerability.pdf

The National Climate Adaptation Programme http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/impacts/nccap/index.html

The State of Victoria. Department of Sustainability and Environment has extensive research and planning for adaptation for the southeastern capital state.
http://www.greenhouse.vic.gov.au/index.html

The State of Queensland. The Queensland Climate Change Centre of Excellence (QCCCE) provides decision makers in the State with policy advice, information and scientific data on climate change and its impact on the community, the economy and the environment. http://www.climatechange.qld.gov.au

CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, is Australia's national science agency and one of the largest and most diverse research agencies in the world.
http://www.csiro.au/science/ClimateChange.html


USA

The United States has had relatively little activity in adaptation to the impacts of climate change since President Bush entered office. The Clinton administration established a Federal program to analyze possible impacts of climate change and to support preparedness planning for the US as a whole and by region. This continues, although the Federal web site for the program fails to link to a number of the more challenging regional reports, such as California and Rocky Mountain / Great Basin. The Alaska documents, a critical area of present impacts from climate change, have not been updated since 1999 on the Federal site. A search on Alaska and "preparing for a changing climate" brings independent material from 2004 linked below.

The US Global Change Research Program-- Federal site including Climate Science Research: http://www.usgcrp.gov

US EPA Climate Change site: http://epa.gov/climatechange/index.html
  and a study in progress on adaptation is at http://epa.gov/climatechange/effects/adaptation.html

NOAA's Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) program supports research that addresses complex climate sensitive issues of concern to decision-makers and policy planners at a regional level. http://www.climate.noaa.gov/cpo_pa/risa/

National Assessment -- Preparing for a Changing Climate report:
http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/Library/nationalassessment/foundation.htm

Rocky Mountain and Great Basin region (not on Fed site) 2003:
PREPARING FOR A CHANGING CLIMATE: The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change. Rocky Mountain/Great Basin Regional Climate-Change Assessment.
Note: This report was removed without explanation from its official site at Utah State University. 
It is now available here: http://www.indigodev.com/Rocky_Mtn_Great_Basin_PCC.pdf

Southeast region: http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/nacc/seregion.htm

Gulf Coast subregion: http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/nacc/gulfcoast.htm

California Region (see below)

Southwest Region: http://www.ispe.arizona.edu/research/swassess/report.html

Pacific Northwest region: http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/Library/nationalassessment/pnw.pdf

Alaska and arctic: http://amap.no/workdocs/index.cfm?dirsub=%2FACIA%2Foverview

for other regions go to Federal links to regional reports (often not the most recent drafts): http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/nacc/allreports.htm

Pacific Islands (USA) : http://www.eastwestcenter.org/res-rp-publicationdetails.asp?pub_ID=1299


New York City

The Climate Change Information Resources, NYC Metro Region web site is a valuable source of guidance on regional climate change impacts assessment but does not present much evidence of plans to prepare for these impacts. (It has not been updated since 2005).
http://ccir.ciesin.columbia.edu/nyc/

The Pew Center on Global Climate Change, Coping with Global Climate Change: The Role of Adaptation in the United States, June 2004 http://www.pewclimate.org/global-warming-in-depth/all_reports/adaptation/index.cfm

 The Adaptation Network

The Adaptation Network brokers relationships, resources, organizing savvy, and creativity in partnership with climate scientists and in the public interest so that we in the US immediately begin adapting to present and projected climate impacts.  Co-Directors are Beth Raps Ph.D and Lynn Carter.
Contact by e-mail bethraps at earthlink.net

California

California Regional Assessment: Preparing for Climate Change: The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change for California (not on Federal site) 2002: http://www.ncgia.ucsb.edu/pubs/CA_Report.pdf

The California Applications Program (CAP) and the California Climate Change Center (CCCC) aim to develop and provide better climate information and forecasts for decision makers in California and the surrounding region. By working directly with users, CAP and CCCC are working to evaluate climate information needs and utility from the user perspective.
http://meteora.ucsd.edu/cap/caphome.html

California data resources links for weather/climate; hydrologic; fire, plant, wildlife; air quality; coastal weather;  educational outreach: http://meteora.ucsd.edu/cap/capdata.html

California Climate Change Portal: http://www.climatechange.ca.gov/

California Climate Links: http://www.climatechange.ca.gov/links/index.html

European Union

European Commission's 2007 Green Paper "Adapting to Climate Change in Europe - Options for EU Action,"  argues that the EU as a whole and memeber countries need to begin adaptation planning without delay.
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2007:0354:FIN:EN:PDF

European Environment Agency. 2005. Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change in Europe.
Technical report No 7/2005 http://reports.eea.europa.eu/technical_report_2005_1207_144937/en

European Environmental Agency. 2007. Climate change and water adaptation issues, Technical report No 2/2007, http://reports.eea.europa.eu/technical_report_2007_2/en

Adaptation and Mitigation Strategies: supporting European climate policy (ADAM Project) is funded by the European Commission and co-ordinated by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the UK. It is an integrated research project seeking a better understanding of the trade-offs and conflicts that exist between adaptation and mitigation policies. http://www.adamproject.eu/


Canada

CANADIAN CLIMATE IMPACTS AND ADAPTATION RESEARCH NETWORK (C-CIARN):
 “C-CIARN generates new climate change knowledge by bringing researchers together with decision-makers from industry, government, and non-government organizations”.. www.c-ciarn.ca

C-CIARN’s handbook, Adapting to Climate Change: An Introduction for Canadian Municipalities: www.c-ciarn.ca/index_e.asp?CaId=13&PgId=154

Farm-Level Adaptation to Multiple Risks: Climate Change and Other Concerns, University of Guelph, Department of Geography, Occasional Paper 27 by Belliveau, Bradshaw, Smit, Reid, Ramsey, Tarleton, and Sawyer. www.multiplerisks.com/results/inc/Farm-level%20adapt.pdf

Preparing for Climate Change: Adapting to Impacts on British Columbia’s Forest and Range Resources, Ministry of Forests and Range May 18, 2006 http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/mof/Climate_Change/Preparing_for_Climate_Change.pdf

New Zealand

New Zealand appears to have cut back on adaptation planning to focus on developing an emissions trading system. However the following web site still contains publications with detailed studies by counties, guidelines for coastal management and farming, advisory documents for businesses, etc:
http://www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/climate/