ABSTRACT

Climate change is likely to be one of the greatest threats facing societies in the coming decades. In response, considerable international effort—most notably represented by the Kyoto Protocol—has gone into policies that will contribute to the reduction of emissions of greenhouse gases. However, it is increasingly recognised that communities also need to be planning for those climate impacts that are unavoidable even with concerted mitigation efforts. Different elements at risk can be subject to an array of multiple stressors and feedback processes, not only the effects of a changing climate. Further climate-related impacts such as storms and sea floods also resulted in large numbers of deaths in the Netherlands and Germany during this period. Hypothesising future cooling events, the authors also considered the potential and extreme impact associated with cooling that would occur in the aftermath of nuclear conflict.