Conceptual frameworks of adaptation to climate change and their applicability to human health

Anthropogenic climate change will affect the distribution and urgency of health risks around the world. However, the majority of adverse health impacts of climate change can be avoided by implementing suitable adaptation policies. Planned adaptation to the health impacts of climate change comprises a broad range of public health interventions. Most of these measures are not only effective in a changed climate but they also current health risks. Successful planned adaptation depends on an awareness of and information about the problem, on the existence of effective response strategies, and on the availability of the resources, information, and incentives to actually implement them. The main challenges in developing adaptation strategies for human health are to account for the diversity of health impairments, regional conditions and adaptation actors, and for the large uncertainty about future changes in most climate-sensitive health risks. This report reviews a broad range of 'conceptual frameworks of adaptation' as to their relevance for assessments of planned adaptations to the health impacts of climate change. These frameworks originate from the largely distinct communities concerned with climate change, public health, natural hazards, and risk management. The term 'conceptual framework of adaptation' is used here to denote any representation of concepts that can assist the design and assessment of policy strategies aimed at reducing climate-sensitive health effects. In our review, we distinguish the following categories of conceptual frameworks: typologies of climate change assessments; guidelines for climate change risk assessments; conceptual frameworks for vulnerability and adaptation to climate change; typologies of adaptation measures and adaptive systems; and evaluation frameworks for adaptation strategies. (orig.)Available from TIB Hannover: RR5801(91) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman

ICLIPS - Integrierte Abschaetzung von Klimaschutzstrategien Abschlussbericht

The ICLIPs project is connected to the development of integrated climate impact research in Germany. It is concerned not only with a single dimension of possible impacts of climate change, but it also investigates these impacts in the context of adaptation options and mitigation possibilities. The Tolerable Windows Approach (TWA) permits the explicit consideration of both ecological and economic requirements in identifying tolerable climate protection strategies. This way it fulfills the central objective of science policy related to the complex issue of 'Sustainable Growth'. In the project period, the ICLIPS model, a detailed integrated model of global climate change ('Integrated Assessment Model', IAM) was developed in the framework of a successful international cooperation. As a result, climate impact research in Germany succeeded to catch up with the international forefront in a research field that is very important for practical policy advice, and even managed to take a leading role in some important sub-fields. The ICLIPS model contains a series of innovative features that clearly distinguish this model from other intertemporal optimization models. The features worth mentioning here include: a numerically highly efficient climate model that covers all relevant greenhouse gases; a series of Climate Impact Response Functions that depict climate-relevant changes in natural vegetation systems, agricultural yields, and water availability; and finally a model of long-term economic development that explicitly considers the cost-reducing effects of technological learning. (orig.)Das ICLIPS-Projekt bezieht sich auf die Weiterentwicklung der integrierten Klimafolgenforschung in Deutschland, die sich nicht nur eindimensional mit moeglichen Auswirkungen von Klimaveraenderungen beschaeftigt, sondern diese zusammen mit Anpassungsoptionen und Vermeidungsmoeglichkeiten untersucht. Der Fensteransatz, der bei der Identifizierung von tolerierbaren Klimaschutzstrategien explizit sowohl oekologische als auch oekonomische Anforderungen zu beruecksichtigen vermag, erfuellt zentrale forschungspolitische Ziele in bezug auf den Fragenkomplex 'Nachhaltiges Wachstum'. Innerhalb des Projektzeitraums konnte im Rahmen einer erfolgreichen internationalen Kooperation mit dem ICLIPS-Modell ein detailliertes integriertes Modell des globalen Klimawandels ('Integrated Assessment Model', IAM) erstellt werden. Damit ist es der deutschen Klimafolgenforschung gelungen, in diesem fuer die praktische Politikberatung wichtigen Forschungsfeld Anschluss an die internationale Entwicklung zu finden und in wichtigen Teilbereichen eine fuehrende Rolle zu uebernehmen. Das ICLIPS-Modell enthaelt eine Reihe von Innovationen, die es von anderen intertemporal optimierenden Modellen absetzt. Erwaehnenswert sind hierbei unter anderem ein numerisch hoechst effizientes Klimamodell, das alle relevanten Treibhausgase beruecksichtigt, eine Vielzahl von Klimawirkungsfunktionen ('Climate Impact Response Functions', CIRFs), die klimabedingte Veraenderungen der natuerlichen Vegetation, der landwirtschaftlichen Ertraege und der Wasserverfuegbarkeit beschreiben sowie ein Modell der langfristigen oekonomischen Entwicklung, das erstmalig kostendaempfende Effekte des technologischen Lernens mit einbezieht. (orig.)SIGLEAvailable from TIB Hannover: F01B1752 / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekBundesministerium fuer Bildung und Forschung, Berlin (Germany)DEGerman