Climate Change and Territorial Effects on Regions and Local Economies in EU (ESPON CLIMATE)

Description:

This project analysed how and to which degree climate change will impact on the competitiveness and cohesion of European regions and Europe as a whole. In addition, it investigated in which way policy can contribute to mitigate climate change, and to adapt to and manage those results of climate change that cannot be avoided, while making sure that synergies of mitigation and adaptation policies are being exploited.

Main research areas:
The degree of vulnerability of different types of European regions to climate change; the impact of variations in different individual climate change parameters on these regions in economic, social, and environmental terms as well as the adaptive capacities of these regions and their further enhancement.
Territorial potentials for the mitigation of climate change in different types of European regions (in relation to e.g. renewable energy, carbon sinks, energy saving).
Potentially new types of regions emerging as a consequence of climate change, revealing the same characteristics regarding their adaptation and their mitigation capacities and the interdependencies among different types of European regions.
The effects of climate change on different sectors of regional and local economies and regional and local infrastructures, the impacts on regional water management. Social and cultural implications of the aforementioned possible developments (e.g. regarding employment, standards of living and welfare in different regions), possible effects on migration within and/or from outside Europe both, in the short and long term as well as the likely effects for different types of regions.
Potential new development opportunities for European regions through adaptation and/or mitigation, their exploitation to achieve more competitiveness on regional and European scale.
Mitigation and adaptation measures to be applied in the different types of European regions to cope with climate change and the contribution of territorial policies to mitigation (e.g. necessary requirements for more sustainable transport modes).

Project information

Lead

TU Dortmund University DE, Stefan Greiving

Partners

Geological Survey of Finland, FI (Philipp Schmidt-Thomé, philipp.schmidtthome@gtk.fi)
Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, NO (Ove Langeland ove.langeland@nibr.no)
Newcastle University, UK (Paul Benneworth Paul.Benneworth@ncl.ac.uk)
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, DE (Jürgen Peter Kropp kropp@pik-potsdam.de)
Helsinki University of Technology, FI (Lasse Peltonen lasse.peltonen@tkk.fi)
Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Department of Environmental Economics, HU (Tamás Pálvölgyi, tpalvolgyi@mail.datanet.hu)
VÁTI Hungarian Public Nonprofit Company for Regional Development and Town Planning, HU (Annamária Göncz, agoncz@vati.hu)
National Institute for Territorial and Urban Research Urban Project, RO (Ion Peleanu, ion.peleanu@incdurban.ro)
Agency for the Support of Regional Development Košice, SK (Jaroslav Tešliar tesliar@arr.sk)
Autonomous University of Barcelona, ES (David Saurí david.sauri@uab.cat)
The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, NL (Judith Borsboom van Beurden Judith.Borsboom@mnp.nl)
Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, CH (Marco Pütz marco.puetz@wsl.ch)

Source of funding

ESPON