The climate change challenge: linking vulnerability, adaptation, and mitigation

Climate change is emerging as one of the major challenges facing scientific and policy communities. The authors argue that its inherent complexity will ultimately require a much more integrated response scientifically to better understand multiple causes and impacts, as well as at the scientific–policy interface where new forms of engagement between scientists, policy-makers, and wider stakeholder communities can make a valuable contribution to more informed climate policy and practice. While scientific research and policy debate is shifting from one of problem-framing to new agendas that are much more concerned with implementation, the improvement of assessment methodologies from a inter- and transdisciplinary perspective, and the reframing of current scientific understanding with regards mitigation, adaptation, and vulnerability, a critical element of responding to the climate change challenge will be to ensure the translation of these new scientific insights into innovative policy and practice ‘on the ground’.