INCT 2014: INCT for Climate Change

Abstract

The INCT Climate Change aims to implement and develop a comprehensive network of interdisciplinary research on global change and sustainability, and is based on the cooperation between about 30 research groups from all regions of Brazil and 10 international research groups, involving in its entirety over approximately 300 researchers, students and technicians and establishing itself as one of the larges networks of environmental research developed in Brazil. The program consists of six thematic lines (or subcomponents): 1. food security; 2. water security; 3. energy security; 4. health; 5. natural disasters, impacts on physical infrastructure in urban areas and urban development; 6. impacts on Brazilian ecosystems in view of changes in land use and biodiversity. All these components are connected via 3 integrative themes or cross cutting themes: 1. economy and impacts in key sectors; 2. modeling the earth system and production of future climate scenarios to study Vulnerability-Impacts-Adaptation-Resilience for Sustainability VlARs; 3. communication, dissemination of knowledge and education for sustainability. This will allow the impacts of global change can be evaluated from the economic point of view, using projections of future climate to assess their potential impacts. Ali the results of this research will be presented and communicated to society and governments a clear and precise manner allowing a greater understanding by decision makers to propose public policies to address the current and future challenges of global change. The most accepted definition for the terms sustainability and sustainable development is the following: a development to meet the needs of society today without compromising the ability of future generations. To be achieved, sustainable development depends on planning and recognition that natural resources are finite. This concept represents a new form of economic development that takes into account environment. The INCT MC program provides an overview of issues related to sustainability and environmentally responsible business in order to facilitate the participation or even the implementation of activities in different areas of the company management and their relationships with "stakeholders". The development of the INCT MC scientific agenda will provide optimum conditions for the country to develop scientific excellence in various areas of global environmental change and its implications for sustainable development, especially when you consider that the economy of developing nations is strongly associated with renewable natural resources, as is strikingly the case in Brazil. The emphasis on the impacts of global climate change on agriculture, health, renewable energy, urban development, and natural disasters such as central themes integrated with environmental modeling, the economics and the communication of these impacts to the public, scientific community and academic sector, industry business and government can contribute to maintain excellence in activities in Science, Technology & Innovation as the axis of sustainable environmental development, with an integrative and innovative character. We use the state of the art on climate modeling using regional and global models to generate climate change scenarios, as well as the development of impacts models to assess consequence of climate change of various key sectors in Brazil. We also use climatic, land use and socioeconomic information, including economy and health, as well as experiments in the field and laboratory, all directed to assess impacts of climate in natural and human systems, and directed to the understanding of possible implications for climate change and mitigation options. This proposal includes knowledge transfer using instruments that go beyond only scientific articles, but producing audiovisual, web tools, and other outlets that allow a scientific education of the population, improving the impact of Brazilian science and also a greater international integration of Brazil in environmental negotiations. The design of the INCT MC is characterized by goals and targets to be achieved in the short, medium and long term, and their achievement is accomplished through well articulated, concatenated and synergistic activities. The six main sub components are integrated by three integrative themes, economic evaluations and environmental risk, the use of state of the art in scenarios of future climate projections developed by INPE. We also consider communication of global environmental issues for society and government needed to define scientific and public policies for large national and international environmental debates subsidies. Participating Brazilian institutions and centers have courses or graduate and undergraduate level, as well as technological training, or are operational centers that apply the state of the art knowledge on climate change and extremes for assessments, monitoring and predictions of natural disasters and their impacts. Some of the participating institutions have the scientific and logistical skills needed to create functional networks to effectively research, where operational and research activities can be favored by the visits of researchers from international groups that are already working on issues relevant to VIARs. For the INCT MC we plan to integrate national institutions with international regional and global programs of excellence in research and training matters relevant to vulnerability, impacts, adaptation, resilience and sustainability. (AU)