Purpose of the Summer School
The annual Summer School of U21 is a rare opportunity for students and staff from 14 countries to join together to explore a hot topic in depth.
The Summer School offers the opportunity for students to work together and draw on the collective experience of academic staff from the U21
network. Students will engage in a range of practical activities, workshops, dialogue-building sessions, research exercises and field trips. Click
here to find out more about the purpose of the U21 Summer School 2009.
Theme: Climate Change Adaptation
In 2009, the focus of the Summer School is on Climate Change Adaptation, one of this century’s greatest challenges facing humanity and our planet.
Potential impacts on natural and human systems include temperature changes, precipitation changes, severe weather events and sea level rise
associated with thermal expansion and de-glaciation. These issues will tax our scientists, governments, communities and businesses to unprecedented
levels.
Early action for climate change is not just about carbon mitigation. Climate change impacts have the potential to cause major disruption and even
transformation of natural processes and of the human systems that rely on these processes. Our knowledge base is expanding rapidly and we need
to make the most of all opportunities for debate and direction-setting.
The big questions to be addressed about adaptation are:
• Predictions - what are the predicted changes and what knowledge is required?
• Impacts – what are the potential impacts and what do these impacts mean for our natural and human systems?
What scenarios do we have about the future impacts?
• Needs – how do we need to adapt to climate change? What are the risks and what are the opportunities?
• Mechanisms - what are the mechanisms for responding and adapting, and how appropriate are they for the scale of the challenges?
• Capability - what is our readiness and capability to adapt, from global to local levels?
Integral to any consideration of adaptation is the imperative that we design and implement a low-carbon economy globally at the same time as we deal
with the predicted changes to our climate such as heating, drying and sea level rise.