The most severe impacts of climate change are likely to occur in the future, several decades from now. Knowledge about the impacts is ambiguous because of the uncertainty of future climate evolution, especially at regional and local scales. Thus, even in well-organized societies, adaptation to future climate is generally not a priority, except when there is certainty about the direction of the future trends, as in the case of sea level rise. In developing countries, adaptation is, in addition, hindered by the lack of social and institutional practices of long-range planning[...]