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The report reviews a draft strategic plan from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, a program formed in 2002 to coordinate and direct U.S. efforts in climate change and global change research. The U.S. Climate Change Science Program incorporates the decade-old Global Change Research Program and adds a new component -the Climate Change Research Initiative-whose primary goal is to "measurably improve the integration of scientific knowledge, including measures of uncertainty, into effective decision support systems and resources."
The U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) coordinates the efforts of 13 federal agencies to understand why climate is changing, to improve predictions about how it will change in the future, and to use that information to assess impacts on human systems and ecosystems and to better support decision making. Evaluating Progress of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program is the first review of the CCSP's progress since the program was established in 2002. It lays out a method for evaluating the CCSP, and uses that method to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the entire program and to identify areas where progress has not met expectations. The committee found that the program has made g...
This book represents a comprehensive overview of the field gathering the thoughts and expertise of hundreds of social scientists from around the world. This edition focuses on the transformative role of the social sciences in confronting climate and broader processes of environmental change.
Produced by the International Social Science Council (ISSC) and UNESCO, and published by the OECD, the 2013 World Social Science Report represents a comprehensive overview of the field gathering the thoughts and expertise of hundreds of social scientists from around the world. This edition focuses on the transformative role of the social sciences in confronting climate and broader processes of environmental change, and in addressing priority problems from energy and water, biodiversity and land use, to urbanisation, migration and education. The report includes 100 articles written by 150 authors from 41 countries all over the world. Authors represent some 24 disciplines, mainly in the social sciences. The contributions highlight the central importance of social science knowledge for environmental change research, as a means of understanding changing environments in terms of social processes and as framework for finding concrete solutions towards sustainability.
Climate change is one of the most important global environmental problems facing the world today. Policy decisions are already being made to limit or adapt to climate change and its impacts, but there is a need for greater integration between science and decision making. This book proposes six priorities for restructuring the United States' climate change research program to develop a more robust knowledge base and support informed responses: Reorganize the Program Around Integrated Scientific-Societal Issues Establish a U.S. Climate Observing System Support a New Generation of Coupled Earth System Models Strengthen Research on Adaptation, Mitigation, and Vulnerability Initiate a National Assessment of the Risks and Costs of Climate Change Impacts and Options to Respond Coordinate Federal Efforts to Provide Climate Information, Tools, and Forecasts Routinely to Decision Makers
It is now widely accepted that adaptation will be necessary if we are to manage the risks posed by climate change. What we know about adaptation, however, is limited. While there is a well established body of scholarship proposing assessment approaches and explaining concepts, few studies have examined if and how adaptation is taking place at a national or regional level.
As progress towards a greater knowledge in sustainability science continues, the question of how better to integrate scientific progress with actual decisions made by practitioners remains paramount. This book aims to help close the gap between science and practice. Based on a two year collaborative project between Harvard and Clark Universities, the book takes as its focus the vulnerability and resilience of people around the world to the effects of environmental change, a mature area of research in which one might expect the gap between science and policy/practice to have been extensively bridged. The book presents analysis of past studies, interviews conducted with the producers and users...
Due to the lack of success in climate change mitigation efforts, the importance of adaptation is becoming more and more apparent and is now one of the main imperatives of international research and action. However, research on adaptation is mostly not directly applicable to adaptation policy or practice, leaving a gap between scientific results and practical advice for decision makers and planners. This book seeks to address this problem and bridge the gap and should provide readers with practical and applicable information on climate change adaptation. Following an introduction, the book is organised into four main sections, each reflecting an essential component in the adaptation process. Climate change adaptation is an emerging subject area and has gained increased political and academic attention within the last decade. Whereas most books in the field focus on adaptation in developing countries, this volume provides an examination of predominantly European policy and offers inter-disciplinary insight into cutting edge knowledge and lessons learnt in a relatively new field of implementation.
As greenhouse gas emissions and temperatures at the poles continue to rise, so do damages from extreme weather events affecting countless lives. Meanwhile, ambitious international efforts to cut emissions (Kyoto, Copenhagen) have proved to be politically ineffective or infeasible. There is hope, however, in adaptive governance—an approach that has succeeded in some local communities and can be undertaken by others around the globe. This book provides a political and historical analysis of climate change policy; shows how adaptive governance has worked on the ground in Barrow, Alaska, and other local communities; and makes the case for adaptive governance as a complementary approach in the climate change regime.