The recently published IPCC report Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability will today be presented at a seminar at the University of Helsinki. The main speaker is professor Martin Parry who led the compilation of this second volume of the assessment report of IPCC. One of the main conclusions of the report is that adaptation measures are necessary if we want to cope with the consequences of the climate change. However, there are many obstacles, restrictions and costs that may hamper adaptation, and these obstacles are not yet adequately known.

The climate is changing in Finland too. The five-year Climate Change Adaptation Research Pro-gramme (ISTO) will deal with adaptation issues and search for solutions that support planning of adaptation measures. ISTO was launched in 2006 as a part of the Finnish National Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change. Many research needs were identified when the national strategy was prepared, and new issues will certainly turn up while the work goes on. ISTO will contribute to our knowledge about these issues.

The FINADAPT project, a part of the Environmental Cluster Research Programme, was the first more comprehensive national-scale study of adaptation issues in Finland. This project, coordinated by the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), was carried out by 11 research institutes and more than 60 researchers. FINADAPT was elected to the best project within the Environmental Cluster Research pro-gramme during the period 2003-2005. Its summary report, published in March, gives decisionmakers a survey of the adaptation capacities of the environment and society in Finland.

The Climate Change Adaptation Research Programme (ISTO) has so far launched 15 research projects. They deal with agriculture, forestry, water resources, construction, urban and regional planning, and biodiversity. Research within these sectors is supported by a climate service and by research on economical estimates. Funding is at this stage mostly provided by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the Environmental Cluster Research Programme of the Ministry of the Environment, but also the Ministry of Transport and Communications and the Road Administration will make a significant contribution. The programme is coordinated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. Parallelly with ISTO, several research institutes will pay more attention to climate change adaptation issues in their own research activities.

One of the challenges of the research programme is to give a more accurate view of the risks of climate change. In forest research, an assessment of pest damage risks has been started. The increased risk of floods in a new climate situation is associated with several functions with the society, and research on flood risk assessment and management is also included in ISTO. The results of flood risk research will be applied in several contexts, e g in urban planning. The last winter was unusually warm, and together with the general rise of climate change awareness it has prompted many actors, among them municipalities, to pay attention to climate change adaptation issues.

More information:
Ms Pirkko Heikinheimo, coordinator of the ISTO programme, Ministry of Agriculture and For-estry, phone +358 9 1605 2301 and +358 400 259 222
Mr Tim Carter, professor, leader of the FINADAPT project, SYKE, phone +358 40 740 5403