Combatting and Adapting to Climate Change

Climate change affects the environment and our lives in many ways. The environmental impacts of climate change can be direct, such as higher temperatures, alterations in water availability (both spatially and temporally) and an increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events, but also more indirect such as sea level rise and changes in the composition and functioning of natural ecosystems. These climate change impacts significantly affect socioeconomic and human development, for example, by influencing agrifood systems, water infrastructures, or the epidemiology of infectious and non-infectious diseases. It is necessary to simultaneously mitigate climate change to prevent a warming that exceeds tolerable ecological tipping points, and advance climate change adaptation in order to increase human and societal resilience against climate change impacts by integrating both technological   and nature-based solutions (NBS) with suitable management and policy approaches and engaging communities, businesses, and other stakeholders. 

Climate change is closely related to the Resource Nexus as it is partially driven by the exploitation of environmental resources such as energy resources (the combustion of fossil fuels) or land (e.g., deforestation) and soil (e.g., the desiccation of marshes, bogs, and swamps). At the same time, climate change affects a wide range of environmental resources including water and the biota which are crucial to human survival and economic development. It is important to also consider the impacts that climate change mitigation can have on other environmental resources, such as significant resource needs for the energy transition or potentially adverse effects that some mitigation technologies (like carbon storage) can have on other environmental resources.