Integration of climate variability and change into national strategies for the implementation of the ICZM Protocol in the Mediterranean (ClimVar)

The 2014 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report (AR5) identified the Mediterranean region as a climate change hotspot that will suffer multiple stresses and systemic failures due to climate changes. ClimVar is a collective effort, run within the “Strategic Partnership for the Mediterranean Sea Large Marine Ecosystem” (MedPartnership), to promote the use of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) as an effective tool to deal with the impacts of climate variability and change in coastal zones, in countries sharing the Mediterranean sea. ClimVar aims to support the participating countries to access climate change and variability assessments, data tools and methods required to develop the most cost-effective ICZM measures to protect coastal communities and resources from the threats posed by climate variability and change. More specifically, the objectives of the project are:

• To strengthen knowledge on regional impacts of climate variability and change and to define their specific characteristics in the Mediterranean region.
• To strengthen partnerships, improve capacity building and establish mechanisms for exchange of data and information for integration of climate variability and change into concrete ICZM policies, plans and programmes.