IMPACT2C - Quantifying projected impacts under 2°C warming

Objectives

In direct response to the FP7-ENVIRONMENT call IMPACT2C will identify and quantify the impacts and most appropriate response strategies of a 2°C global warming for Europe and three selected vulnerable regions in other parts of the world. It will:

• Provide detailed ensemble based climate change scenarios, plus statistics and derived indices, tailored to the needs of various sectors, for the time slice in which the global temperature is simulated to be 2°C above pre industrial levels
• Provide a detailed assessment of risks, vulnerabilities, impacts and associated costs for a broad range of sectors against the background of socio economic scenarios consistent with development paths aimed at limiting global warming to 2°C
• Develop an optimal mix of response strategies (technological, governance, capacity building) accounting for the regional differences in adaptive capacities, distinguishing between those that can be accommodated autonomously and those that require additional policy interventions

IMPACT2C will address all the issues raised in the call text and enhance these through the use of state-of-the-art methods. It will communicate its results and policy recommendations to stakeholders and decision makers through appropriate means and platforms, such as the media.
The overall aims of IMPACT2C are:

• Determination of the climate in Europe and most vulnerable regions for a 1.5°C and 2°C global warming compared to pre-industrial level
• Consideration of impacts from a cross-sectoral perspective, e.g. for particularly vulnerable areas that are subject to multiple impacts where cumulative effects may arise (e.g. in the Mediterranean region) and in relation to cross-cutting themes (e.g. cities and the built environment)

For the latter, IMPACT2C will analyse a number of major cross-sectoral issues in the light of 2°C global warming. On the pan-European level two major themes are addressed:

• Consequences of changing water availability for European Water management, from a stakeholder oriented case study approach towards policy recommendations
• Interaction between the agricultural, water resources and the energy sectors and analyses how these different sectors compete for land use and water resources and how this will change under a changing climate.

These aims will be tackled following a clearly structured concept: the work flows from climate information, its uncertainty processing, via the evaluation of impacts, vulnerabilities and risks, to the cross-sectoral assessments and synthesis highlighting risks, trade-offs, synergies and costs at a pan-European level.

A second line concentrates on climate change impacts in (selected) most vulnerable regions outside Europe. We selected Bangladesh, two regions in Africa (Nile and Niger basins) and the Maldives, each representing a particular region with its own set of vulnerabilities.

IMPACT2C integrates the expertise of top climate scientists, sectoral impact specialists with both physical and economical backgrounds, and local specialists from the regions addressed. The team is made up of 17 nationalities, who have the shared ambition to achieve maximum support to the development of sectoral and cross-sectoral, pan-European strategies aimed at coping with a 2oC global warming, and to support the coping strategies for the three particularly vulnerable world regions.

More information

For more information please visit the IMPACT2C website.