Garama 3C Ltd is a small firm offering climate change consultancy and training services, with a focus on adaptation and resilience. Garama was established by Dr Nick Brooks in 2012, and is based in Norwich, UK. We work with a wide range of clients, including national and local governments, multilateral development banks and other international organisations, development agencies, research bodies, NGOs, charities, and the private sector. Garama provides strategic and practical support for climate change risk and vulnerability assessments, the development of adaptation plans, adaptation policy development, the design and implementation of monitoring and evaluation systems for adaptation, and capacity building initiatives. Our work includes the delivery of bespoke adaptation training, support to individual adaptation initiatives, evaluations of adaptation programmes/activities, the preparation of research reports and academic papers, and community outreach. The ultimate goal of our work is to contribute to the capacity and ambition that is needed if our societies are to survive and thrive in a world radically altered by manmade climatic and environmental change.
Our name is inspired by an archaeological site in the Sahara. Garama was the capital of the Garamantian Tribal Confederation, an indigenous Saharan civilisation that existed in the central Sahara between around 500 BCE and 500 CE. The earliest settlement in area around Garama (near the modern town of Germa/Jarmah in southern Libya) dates from around 1000 BCE, around the time that the last surface water disappeared from this part of the desert. Instead of abandoning the region in response to rapid and severe climatic and environmental change, the people who became the Garamantes innovated, intensifying settlement and production and transforming their society from one based on mobile herding to an urban, agricultural civilisation. This wasn’t a simple case of ‘historical progress’, but an example of people transforming their livelihoods and social systems based on what worked (and what didn’t) in a rapidly changing environment. The banner image at the top of this page shows the view from the ruins of ancient Jarmah (built in turn on the ruins of Garama), across the Jarmah Playa (a now dry lake) to the Ubari Sand Sea. For more on the Garamantes and what they can teach us about adaptation, read this 2017 article on our occasional blog.
Garama is also an acronym describing what we do – Guidance, Analysis, Risk Assessment, and Mentoring for Adaptation. 3C refers to the fact that we are a climate change consultancy. It is also the approximate value of the warming we expect from a doubling of atmoshperic greenhouse gas concentrations, the upper end of the range of warming projected by 2100 under current policies and actions, and the amount of warming that many experts expect to see by the end of the century.
Garama is based in Norwich, UK, and is registered in England as Company No. 08020004.