Objectives

In continuing to address the climate change research agenda we are guided by two key objectives relating to mitigation and adaptation.

1)    To identify and analyse the opportunities, benefits and social, technical and economic challenges associated with different greenhouse gas stabilisation pathways at different temporal and spatial scales; and

2)    To explore, evaluate and facilitate sustainable routes for adapting to climate change through policy, behavioural and technological innovation and robust decision-support tools.

The following key questions derive from these objectives. Although presented here sequentially, the questions are nevertheless highly inter-dependent and contingent upon iterative feedbacks between the questions. Whilst the questions do not contain an expressly temporal dimension, they are intended to engage explicitly with a dynamic rather than static climate change agenda.

What are the implications for GHG stabilisation levels of different global emissions pathways and what do such stabilisation levels and pathways imply for regional adaptation and mitigation?

What is the scope and scale of technological options across the full range of sectors (from energy and transport to agriculture and avoided deforestation) for contributing to mitigation pathways? What are the institutional, behavioural and economic barriers to such technological trajectories?

What is the scope and scale of regional and sectoral adaptation strategies to build resilience to the impacts associated with the stabilisation levels and pathways? What synergies and conflicts are there between such strategies and potential mitigation options?

How can different tiers of policy and governance foster the co-evolution of mitigation and adaptation strategies? Does the appropriateness of different suites of strategies change significantly with the different pathways and stabilisation levels?

How can individual and collective action be mobilised to achieve mitigation and adaptation strategies? How should such strategies be adjusted to engage with and benefit from individual and collective action, and how would such action change over time and with the ‘severity’ of mitigation and adaptation strategies?

Addressing these questions requires Tyndall to carry out research within an integrating institutionalframework that: (i) facilitates an infusion of different disciplinary methods to offer new approaches and insights; (ii) applies integrated modelling techniques to contribute to understanding the issues; and (iii) engages academia and wider society to ensure Tyndall research continues to be scientifically, socially, politically and economically robust.