Around the world, climate change has become the focus of urgent discussion and action. It presents a multi-dimensional challenge, but can also be seen as providing opportunities. Dealing with climate change marks a new paradigm for development. While the more visible impacts of climate change on the country are only now emerging, Cambodia has been active in taking measures to address climate change for more than a decade.

Recent natural phenomena, such as the delayed rains in 2010, further demonstrate the extreme dependence of rural people’s well-being on the regularity of seasons, controlled by the climate, and the availability of natural resources like water. The late onset of the rainy season resulted in record-low water levels on the Tonle Sap and Mekong Rivers, and raised concerns in the public media regarding climate change. Many poor farmers were already in a tenuous position, having lost their crops in the previous year to the highly unusual and devastating Typhoon Ketsana in September 2009.