Climate Engineering – ein Sammelbegriff für großskalige technische Eingriffe in  das Klimasystem der Erde – wird zunehmend als Option im Kampf gegen den anthropogenen Klimawandel diskutiert. Wie die Definition schon andeutet, hat jeder Einsatz von Climate Engineering potenziell globale Auswirkungen: Weltweit würden das Klima und Ökosysteme verändert, und damit die Umwelt ganzer Gesellschaften. Aus diesem Grund greift eine rein naturwissenschaftliche oder ökonomische Analyse der Thematik viel zu kurz, gerade weil so viele Umweltmedien, Gesellschaften und menschliche Lebensbereiche durch das Climate Engineering tangiert werden. Deshalb kann nur eine interdisziplinäre Herangehensweise, die auch die gesellschaftlichen Aspekte einschließt, eine zufriedenstellende Analyse des Themas gewährleisten.

Changes in atmospheric composition directly affect many aspects of life, determining climate, air quality and atmospheric inputs to ecosystems. In turn, these changes affect the fundamental necessities for human existence: human health, food production, ecosystem health and water. Atmospheric composition change research is therefore fundamental for the future orientation of Europe's Sustainable Development strategy. The overall goals of ACCENT are to promote a common European strategy for research on atmospheric composition change, to develop and maintain durable means of communication and collaboration within the European scientific community, to facilitate this research and to optimise twoway interactions with policy-makers and the general public.

ACCENT will establish Europe as an international leader in atmospheric composition change research, able to steer research agendas through its involvement in major international programmes. ACCENT furthermore aims to become the authoritative voice in Europe on issues dealing with atmospheric
composition change and sustainability.

The ACCENT joint research programme focuses on aerosols, biosphere-atmosphere interaction and transport and transformation of pollutants and it also looks for new partnership in economic and Earth System analysis. Integration will be achieved by creating common facilities and activities including: a dedicated interactive web portal, models, data-bases, measurement platforms, training and education opportunities, quality assurance procedures and facilities, integrated assessment and synthesis of scientific results and an interface with the general public. The excellence and the commitment of the ACCENT Partnership guarantee an effective and durable integration of the European atmospheric composition change research and that it becomes a pillar of the European Research Area.

The core objectives of ADAM (ADaptation And Mitigation) are:

To assess the extent to which existing and evolving EU (and world) mitigation and adaptation policies can achieve a tolerable transition (a 'soft landing') to a world  with a global climate no warmer than 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels, and to identify their associated costs and effectiveness, including an assessment of the damages avoided compared to a scenario where climate change continues unchecked to 5 C.

To develop and appraise a portfolio of longer term strategic policy options that could contribute to addressing identified shortfalls both between existing mitigation policies and the achievement of the EU's 2 C target, and between existing  adaptation policy development and implied EU goals and targets for adaptation.

To develop a novel Policyoptions Appraisal Framework and apply it both to existing and evolving policies, and to new, long-term strategic policy options, so as to inform: European and international climate protection strategy in post-2012 Kyoto negotiations, a restructuring of International Development Assistance, the EU electricity sector and regional spatial planning.

The ADAM project will lead to a better understanding of the synergies, trade-offs and conflicts that exist between adaptation and mitigation policies at multiple scales. Crucially, ADAM will support EU policy development in the next stage of the
development of the Kyoto Protocol, in particular negotiations around a post-2012 global climate policy regime, and will inform the emergence of new adaptation strategies for Europe. The main impact of the ADAM project will be to improve
the quality and relevance of scientific and stakeholder contributions to the  development and evaluation of climate change policy options within the European Commission. This will help the Commission to deliver on its current medium-term
climate policy objectives and help inform its development of a longer-term climate strategy.

Objective: AMAZALERT will enable raising the alert about critical feedbacks between climate, society, land-use change, vegetation change, water availability and policies in Amazonia. We will:
1) analyze and improve coupled models of global climate and Amazon, land use, vegetation and socio-economic drivers to quantify anthropogenic and climate induced land-use and land cover change and non-linear, irreversible feedbacks among these components
2) assess the role of regional and global policies and societal responses in the Amazon region for altering the trajectory of land-use change in the face of climate change and other anthropogenic factors and finally
3) propose i) an Early Warning System for detecting any imminent irreversible loss of Amazon ecosystem services, ii) policy response strategies to prevent such loss.

We first prioritise the functions of Amazonia and threats to these. We then will analyse uncertainties in biogeochemistry, land cover (vegetation), land-use change and regional hydrology, as well as nonlinear responses and feedbacks using existing and new simulations from state of the art models in which land surface is coupled to global climate. The way in which policies and possible future response strategies of policy makers, trade and economy will affect land-use change will be modelled. This will lead to (A) understanding the impact on and effectiveness of a range of international and regional policy options, including REDD+; and (B) identification of both biophysical and socio-economic indicators of irreversible change.
AMAZALERT integrates the multidisciplinary knowledge and research of world-renowned, highly influential climate, land cover, land use change scientists and also policy analysts from 14 European and South-American institutions that have been collaborating for 10 to 30 years. Thus, this project can achieve maximum impact on EU (2020 climate goals), international and South-American strategies, including REDD

The dramatic change in the region of the West African monsoon (WAM) from wet conditions in the 50s and 60s to much drier conditions from the 70s to the 90s represents one of the strongest inter-decadal signals on the planet in the 20th century. Marked inter-annual variations in recent decades have resulted in extremely dry years with devastating environmental and socio-economic impacts.

The abrupt decrease of water resources in the Sahel divided by two the cattle population and some exportation cultures disappeared. Vulnerability of West African societies to climate variability is likely to increase in the next decades as demands on resources increase due to the rapidly growing population. The situation may be exacerbated by the effects of climate change, land degradation caused by the growing population and water pollution.

Motivated by the need to develop strategies to reduce the socioeconomic impacts of climate variability and change in WAM we aim:

• - To improve our ability to predict the WAM and its impacts on intra-seasonal to decadal timescales,

• - To improve our ability to predict the consequences of climate change on WAM variability and its impacts.

These objectives will be achieved in the African Monsoon Multidisciplinar/ Analysis (AMMA) project by re-enforcing the regional environmental monitoring systems and conducting intensive field campaigns. This will lead to a better understanding of the mechanisms involved and in-fine improve our models and their predictive skills.
The observational system will cover the regional water cycle, the atmospheric dynamics and chemistry, the land-surface and oceanic conditions. It will cover 3 time scales:

• - a long term monitoring,

• - an enhanced observing period of two years and

• - a special observing periods over one rainy season.

In order to monitor the human dimension of the West African monsoon variability crop yields, water resources and health will be monitored with the same strategy.

The project AMPERE is aiming for a broad exploration of mitigation pathways and associated mitigation costs under various real world limitations, while at the same time generating a better understanding about the differences across models, and the relation to historical trends. Uncertainties about the costs of mitigation originate from the entire causal chain ranging from economic activity, to emissions and related technologies, and the response of the carbon cycle and climate system to greenhouse gas emissions. AMPERE will use a sizable ensemble of state-of-the-art energy-economy and integrated assessment models to analyse mitigation pathways and associated mitigation costs in a series of multi-model intercomparisons. A consortium of 21 international partners will work on AMPERE.

The priority programs of field, experimental and modelling studies to analyse the impacts of the anticipated climate change on aquatic ecosystems. According to most forecasts for our region, emphasis will be given to the effects of seasonal temperature increases with most of the warming occurring in winter. For running waters also increased frequencies of extreme events can be considered. It is anticipated, that climate change will differently affect light dependent processes (e.g. primary production) and temperature dependent processes (e.g. heterotrophic processes). As a consequence, not only changed phenologies and population dynamics of singles species but also shifts in biotic interactions (competition, predation) are expected. It will be the focus of the priority program, to analyse the community and ecosystem level consequences of a temporal de-coupling ("mismatch") of hitherto synchronised processes ("match"; e.g. temporal coincidence of food abundance and prey demand by certain life-cycle stages of consumers).

Impact of climate change becomes more obvious from year to year. Weather changes, such as warmer summer and winter with less snow, play along with resulting consequences, such as storms and floods, a major role for spatial and ecological development of regions. Thus, economical losses steadily increase caused by natural events. Furthermore, the global climate change has potential long-term effects on flora and fauna, sea level rise and coastal protection.

Against this background the project "Developing Policies & Adaptation Strategies to Climate Change in the Baltic Sea Region" (ASTRA) aims to estimate regional consequences of the ongoing global climate change in the Baltic Sea Region and to develop  strategies to deal with climate change. This will be done taking into account medium and long-term strategies depend on support of decision makers and stakeholders - regional and local planners included. The ICZM-Oder project is a significant case study within the ASTRA project.

Climate change will influence precipitation amounts and patterns, and lead to an increase in terrestrial and ocean temperatures and a rise in sea level. The resulting changes will jeopardize the integrity of the ecosystem and increase risks caused by natural disasters. There are good experiences of adaptation in the Baltic Sea Region but they are somehow fragmented and do not acknowledge the fact that the Baltic Sea is a specific eco-region. The EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region recognizes this problem by calling for a Baltic Sea Region-wide climate change adaptation strategy, which should provide a framework to strengthen cooperation and information sharing within the region and help to create a coherent set of adaptation policies and actions from the transnational to the local level. Such an overarching framework, which is badly missing, would help to tackle what the Operating Programme of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region has identified as a major weakness: the “lack of transnational co-operation and joint planning in usage of Baltic Sea space and in minimalisation of risks caused by natural disasters”.

The BaltCICA Project is designed to focus on the most imminent problems that climate change is likely to cause in the Baltic Sea Region. The concentration of large parts of the population and many larger cities in coastal areas make the region especially sensitive to climate change. Changes in precipitation and flood patterns as well as rising sea level can affect not only the built environment but also water availability and quality.

Adaptation to climate change cannot be solved solely locally and in isolated attempts, but calls for cooperation and integrated approaches in the Baltic Sea Region. The BaltCICA project with local and regional partners prepares regions and municipalities to cope with a changing climate.