An atlas of climate impacts and adaptation priorities
23 February 2009
The University of Copenhagen hosts The International
Scientific Congress on Climate Change on 10-12 March in
Copenhagen. This is the third in a row of climate research
stories that will be released up to and presented at the
conference.
Ever wondered where climate change might hit hardest?
Where people are most vulnerable to changed rainfall
patterns, rising seas, droughts or a combination of these
and possibly more of the detrimental effects of climate
change?
As the number of analyses of the impacts of climate
change grow, it can get increasingly difficult to get an
overview of where the effects are most severe and thus where
efforts to adapt to the new conditions of a changing climate
should be focused and coordinated.
A new tool aims to clarify the picture. The Global
Adaptation Atlas is an online mapping tool being developed
to highlight confluences of climate impacts and adaptation
investments. The aim of the Atlas is to illustrate where
climate change could have the greatest number of damaging
effects and show if and where adaptation projects align with
expected impacts over time. By gathering and filtering
diverse climate science and adaptation funding data and
presenting them as compatible map layers in a single graphic
framework, the Atlas will provide a way to visualize gaps
and overlaps that otherwise will be hard to piece together.
?The Atlas can help better convey the impacts of climate
change and target related investments and policy
interventions around the world?, says Shalini Vajjhala, PhD
and Fellow at Resources for the Future (RFF), a nonprofit
and nonpartisan organization in Washington, D.C. that
conducts independent research on environmental, energy, and
natural resource issues.
Researchers from RFF are working on the development of
the Atlas throughout 2009. The aim is to have a fully
functional prototype ready for the United Nations Climate
Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen in December, where
politicians will try to reach a new global deal on combating
climate change. But an overview of the science and policy
underpinnings of the Atlas will be presented at the IARU
International Scientific Congress on Climate Change, taking
place in Copenhagen 10 ? 12 March.
The congress will gather thousands of the world?s climate
researchers to deliver an update on our knowledge on climate
change and how to handle the risks and opportunities that
come from it. The results will be presented to the world
leaders as they gather later this year in Copenhagen to
discuss a new global deal on how to fight climate change at
the U.N. Climate Change Conference - COP15.
The International Scientific Congress on Climate Change
is taking place in Copenhagen 10 ? 12 March. It is organized
by International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU):
Australian National University; ETH Zürich; National
University of Singapore; Peking University; University of
California, Berkeley; University of Cambridge; University of
Copenhagen; University of Oxford; University of Tokyo; Yale
University.
For further information on The International Scientific
Congress on Climate Change, please contact:
Morten Jastrup,
Climate Office, University of Copenhagen.
E-mail:
morten.jastrup@gmail.com
Tel: + 45 6116 3233 or
Charlotte Brix Andersen,
Climate Office, University of Copenhagen.
E-mail: chba@adm.ku.dk
Tel: +45 2875 4104
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