Better understanding of the interactions between climate change impacts and risks, mitigation and adaptation options

Project results are expected to contribute to some of the following expected outcomes:

• Enhanced understanding, supported by quantitative and qualitative analysis, of the interaction, complementarity and trade-offs between adaptation and mitigation measures and policies helping to overcome the silo approach within and between them and leading to more effective climate action policies.
• Better knowledge about the risk and impacts of climate change and their interaction with mitigation pathways, including their feasibility across various scenarios of global warming.
• Enhanced legitimacy and robustness of integrated assessment frameworks based on more realistic representation of climate processes and their impacts.
• Contribution to enhanced collaboration among Working Groups I, II, and III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
• Support and interaction with the activities of Horizon Europe Mission “Adaptation to climate change including societal transformation”.

Actions should deliver progress in integrating the analysis of the impacts and risks of climate change, mitigation pathways and adaptation strategies into a single framework to help understand and quantify their numerous interactions.

Progress is needed to better reflect the economic damages and reduced well-being due to climate change in mitigation pathway analysis. Actions should integrate state of the art climate science stemming from Earth System Models, Reduced Complexity Models and similar into a common integrated assessment framework. This could include climate change impacts, biodiversity and ecological considerations, Earth system feedbacks and extreme events, and their interaction with mitigation pathways.

Actions should also improve the general understanding of the synergies, conflicts and trade-offs between mitigation and adaptation strategies. For example, many adaptation actions that need to be deployed at a large scale in the short to medium term (in parallel to ambitious mitigation efforts) can have negative impact in terms of emissions. This includes flood and coastal (hard) protection, irrigation and desalination measures as well as increased demand for cooling/air conditioning that are typically highly energy intensive and may put additional stress on energy systems. Another example of an interaction between adaptation and mitigation strategies is the shift towards regenerative and organic agriculture that provides adaptation benefits, but may require expansion of food production areas to compensate for lower productivity with the consequence of more deforestation. Any such potential conflicts and interdependencies should be investigated, taking into account cross-sectorial cascading effects and temporal differences.

Actions should formulate a set of technical and policy recommendations, including sector-specific ones, targeting both public and private stakeholders, to reduce the tensions between mitigation and adaptation strategies. Given that the interactions between mitigation and adaptation often occur at regional and local scale, research should also aim at finding solutions to reconcile the different scales at which mitigation and adaptations strategies are implemented, including improving the territorial resolution of relevant tools. In addition, actions should evaluate the impact on the costs of mitigation and adaptation strategies in Europe when they are treated in an integrated manner. In order to achieve the above-mentioned objectives actions may work on improvements in the modelling of adaptation, particularly in the sectors where adaptation strongly interacts with mitigation (such as energy and agriculture).

Actions should explore effective ways for bridging the gap between modelling theory and practical applications, including through active involvement of and co-creation with stakeholders and end-users from various relevant fields and social categories, including through case studies in order to test and replicate the results. This should include outreach activities to general public to better explain the trade-offs and interactions between mitigation and adaptation strategies and measures.

Synergies with relevant projects funded under this Work Programme as well those originating from Horizon 2020 should be explored and established during the course of the project. In particular, projects resulting from the topic HORIZON-CL5-2022-D1-01-02-two-stage: Socio-economic risks of climate change in Europe and from Cluster 3 on Disaster Resilient Societies should be foreseen.

When dealing with models, actions should promote highest standards of transparency and openness, as much as possible going well beyond documentation and extending to aspects such as assumptions, code and data that is managed in compliance with the FAIR principles^[1]. In particular, beneficiaries are strongly encouraged to publish results data in open access databases and/or as annexes to publications. In addition, full openness of any new modules, models or tools developed from scratch or substantially improved with the use of EU funding is expected.

Projects funded under this topic should ensure the coordination of their activities.

This topic requires the effective contribution of SSH disciplines and the involvement of SSH experts, institutions as well as the inclusion of relevant SSH expertise, in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related research activities.

[1] FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). Further information: https://www.go-fair.org/fair-principles/; and Final Report and Action Plan from the European Commission Expert Group on FAIR Data, “TURNING FAIR INTO REALITY” (https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/turning_fair_into_reality_0.pdf)