ABSTRACT
This chapter draws from research being carried out for the EC-funded project ‘Adaptation and mitigation strategies: Supporting European climate policy’ (ADAM; see www.adamproject.eu). This was a large-scale integrated project involving research institutes from across the EU that aims to address one of the main threats facing future societies – climate change. An increasingly consensual view, promoted through the collaborative efforts of the international scientific community, is that climate change is happening, and importantly, that human activity is making a discernible contribution to this change (IPCC, 2007). Although mitigation continues to be the prime focus for policy-makers – for example, the Kyoto Protocol that came into force in 2005 – the mid- to late 1990s witnessed a shift in emphasis, with the international scientific community growing increasingly concerned about the risks associated with a changing climate, and the need for nations and communities to adapt (McEvoy et al, 2006a). In response, the ADAM project, active from 2006 to 2009, is not only researching the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (i.e. the mitigation agenda), but ADAM is also jointly considering how to adapt to change that is unavoidable. This dual focus is based on the understanding that much of the anticipated change in climate over the next 40 years or so has already been predetermined by past emissions.
