Latest news and events on Climate-ADAPT

Forest owners and forestry managers in the Haut-Languedoc Regional Nature Park (Southern France) are testing a new mobile application which will help foresters plan forest management based on future climate changes.

A team of researchers studied one plant species from various locations in Europe and found that only few of the varieties had enough mutational ability to adapt to heat and drought. Genetic information for most plant species is still lacking, but new methods will enable scientists to make predictions on plant genetic fitness in times of climate change.

Heat reduction strategies vary with the regional climate. Data from 30,000 cities worldwide show that planting trees is not effective everywhere. City planners need to take the local microclimate into account. In a wet tropical climate it makes urban areas more humid: other cooling methods like wind circulation and use of shadow can be used. In desert-like conditions careful planting helps.

The aim of this sixth webinar of the European Climate Adaptation platform (Climate-ADAPT), is to improve awareness of the Climate-ADAPT urban knowledge elements and tools, and to promote their use, e.g. for local planning, awareness raising, participatory processes and project formulation.

This special report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlights the urgency of prioritizing timely, ambitious and coordinated action to address unprecedented changes in the ocean and cryosphere. The report reveals the benefits of ambitious and effective adaptation for sustainable development and, conversely, the escalating costs and risks of delayed action.

The aim of the fifth webinar of the European Climate Adaptation platform (Climate-ADAPT) is to disseminate the basic features of the Climate-ADAPT case studies: criteria for their identification, structure for their description, development process, and current state of the case study collection. Besides two specific case studies from a developer perspective and a local implementation point of view are going to be presented and the use of the Climate-ADAPT pool of case studies will be promoted, e.g. for: strategic policy process, awareness raising, planning, development of guidelines, design and implementation of similar applications in other locations. Participants will discuss further development of case studies and share potential ways to improve the case study search tool.

The Understanding Risk (UR) Europe Forum provides a platform for public and private sector, institutions, non-governmental organizations, academia and media and is organizing this 2019 forum to sharing knowledge and best practices on climate change impacts, such as wildfires, droughts and floods in Europe.

This project (Territorial Responsible Research and Innovation Fostering Innovative Climate Action) conference will start with expert talks on climate action with a focus on engagement, methodology and institutionalisation aspects. There will be representatives from six European pilot regions that combine co-creation processes with climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies.

The European Commission has published two new guidance documents implementing the Commission’s action plan for nature, people and the economy. These documents are intended to help policymakers, planners and businesses solve socio-economic challenges, while also protecting and restoring Europe's nature.

This conference focuses on how the environment and climate change affect human health and how human behaviour affects the health of the Earth.

European symposium on forest adaptation organized by the LIFE FORECCAsT project.

The Climate-fit.city project is hosting a two-day conference that will bring together 200+ climate researchers, policy-makers, industry experts, as well as city and regional actors to showcase how climate data can serve both cities and business.

The relations between climate extremes and sustainable development goals will be discussed at conference.

EUROCITIES is organizing this training on climate adaptation during the European Week for Regions and Cities, with the purpose to provide information to local politicians to assist them in their decision-making on issues related to adaptation. The session targets local politicians (Mayors, Deputy Mayors, elected Councillors) from all over Europe.

Heatwaves are affecting the supply of water, which is essential for cooling power plants and for the production of fuels and hydropower. A Joint Research Centre analysis proposes actions for addressing this kind of problems in EU energy and water policies.

The report analyses data and tools for mapping and measuring green infrastructure and ecosystem services, with case demonstrations looking into climate change adaptation.

A large international research has demonstrated for the first time that climate change has an impact on the magnitude of river floods. However, it does not have the same effect on floods everywhere: In northwestern Europe, floods are becoming increasingly severe, in southern and eastern Europe flood magnitudes mostly tend to decrease.

Crop and livestock production is projected to decrease and may even have to be abandoned in parts of Europe’s southern and Mediterranean regions due to the increased negative impacts of climate change.

The Climate Adaptation Partnership under the Urban Agenda has developed a public survey. This survey has been set up to establish how cities and municipalities can effectively use the climate data made available via the Climate Data Store (CDS) of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) to develop their climate adaptation plans. Based on this survey, training sessions will be set up, tailored to the needs of cities.

Workshop “Pro-active management of forests to combat climate change driven risks: Policies and measures for increasing forest resilience and climate change adaptation".

The IPCC launched on 8 August the Special Report on Climate Change and Land, which assesses interlinkages between climate change effects and desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems. The Summary for Policy Makers, as well as the full report, are available on the IPCC website.

ClimCards, a card game released by the Permanent Secretariat of the Alpine Convention, focuses on achieving different targets for climate change adaptation and mitigation in the Alps, through policy or individual actions, while various unexpected events keep occurring. This game is suitable for 3-6 players of 10 years+ and available in English, German, French, Italian and Slovenian.

Over most of Europe, the average temperature in June 2019 was higher than the 1981-2010 average for the month and it was particularly warm over parts of central and eastern Europe. Around the middle of the month temperature records were broken in eastern Europe. Western and central Europe experienced a short, but intense heatwave during the last week of the month.

To find out information about adaptation to climate change in Belgium, the National Climate Commission has developed a new web portal as part of the implementation of the National Adaptation Plan. The portal aims to provide available information about climate change (observations, scenarios, impacts), adaptation policies, vulnerabilities and adaptation measures in 14 sectors.

Societies worldwide have become more resilient to climate disasters, but climate change is likely to result in an unprecedented rise in climate extremes, which will challenge the climate resilience and adaptive capacity of our societies.

This report is written by the EY project on behalf of the Norwegian Environment Agency, and examines how transnational physical climate change risks are managed in a selection of European countries and in the private sector in general. The report provides input on how public and private actors in Norway can continue their work on transnational climate change risks.

A Commission appointed by the Norwegian government has assessed climate-related risk factors and the significance for the Norwegian economy.

Bark beetles are currently responsible for killing an unprecedented number of trees in forests across Europe and North America. Researchers are therefore urging to step up research into bark beetles; also in view of climate change.

This event, organized by the Pyrenean Observatory on Climate Change (OPCC) and the Aragon Region, aims at presenting and transferring the results of the OPCC2 project and associated projects.

A recent Joint Research Centre article warns that the extreme drought conditions that affected central and northern Europe's 2018 spring/summer growing season could become the norm within 25 years, and calls for innovative adaptation measures to deal with extremes.