Climate Change Research Initiatives in EU Member States

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Climate Change Research Initiatives in EU
Member States
Dr. Frank McGovern, Ireland (EU Presidency)

• Side event
• Research in response to the IPCC TAR
• 21 June, 2004, Bonn SB20

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Research capacity in EUGlobal and European level

• Large research capacity in Europe
• Several centres of global importance in climate
  research e.g. Hadley Centre, UK Max Planck,
  Germany IIASA, Austria CNRS, Meteo France,
  France KNMI, Netherlands Rossby Centre, Sweden
  and others
• Several powerful global climate change models
• At European level, very significant support for
  CC research from DG Research, particularly under
  Global Change and Ecosystems programme within the
  6th Framework Programme.

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Research capacity in EU Member State level

• Extensive, diverse, adapted to national and
  regional needs and interests
• Significant socio-economic research on adaptation
  and mitigation development of indicators of
  climate sensitivity increasing capacity for
  regional modelling of agricultural, ecosystem,
  social, economic impacts of CC
• Several important regional models have been
  developed extensive work on downscaling (e.g.
  Hungary, Ireland)
• Co-operation with non-EU countries including
  developing countries (Italy and China, Finland
  and a number of DCs, Netherlands and Bhutan)

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Responding to the Gaps

• Main issues of WG2 on Adaptation Information
  Needs
• Vulnerability, adaptive capacity, long-term
  monitoring systems, data availability and access,
  socio-economic factors influence exposures of
  different communities, modelling, limits to
  adaptation

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Responding to the Gaps

• Main issues of WG3 on Mitigation - Gaps in
  Knowledge
• Regional and sector specific potential and costs
  of mitigation options as well as barriers
• Identification of opportunities in area of social
  innovation leading to decreased GHG emissions
• Capacity building Research, integrated
  assessment, modellingetc
• Synergies between mitigation, adaptation and
  sustainable development
• Equity issues

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How are EU countries responding to these gaps?

• Adaptation
• Regional Modelling UK, Germany, Hungary, Ireland
  and others
• Local capacity development Combination of
  Local/Regional/National decision levels in the
  French National Heat Wave Plan
• Extreme events e.g. Netherlands, UK
• Socio-economic factors e.g. Italy, Germany,
  Finland
• Long-term monitoring e.g. Sweden, Italy
• Vulnerability and risk assessment e.g Italy, UK
• More

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How are EU countries responding to these gaps?

• Mitigation
• Understanding technology diffusion Finland
  (involvement of National Technology Agency)
• Vulnerability modelling Potsdam
• Scenario analysis IIASA
• Developing research capacity esp. in developing
  countries many co-operations of this type

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Climate change research taking place in many
forms

• Difficult to characterise CC research in EU!
• CC research in EU countries is taking place in
  many forms,
• Some countries have extensive research on
  forestry management, alternative energy sources,
  all are relevant to CC, but are not explicitly
  and directly being done for that reason.

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Retaining independence of EU research

• Caution against imposing research priorities on
  countries
• Independence of research at country level should
  be protected
• WG2 and WG3s moves towards prioritising climate
  change research are well-intentioned, but should
  not be allowed to compromise the valuable
  independence and diversity of research going on
  in EU countries.

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Thank you for your attention!