Managing the impact of climate change

As part of our Green Tomorrow initiative, Futuris travelled to Norway to speak to the scientists attempting to develop better strategies to mitigate the worst effects of rising global temperatures.

A key word in the context of climate change is adaptation. Scientists insist even if global carbon emissions are dramatically reduced in the coming years, adaptation will still be needed to deal with the environmental changes that have already been set in motion.

Futuris spoke to Jana Silmann, Research Director at the Center for International Climate Research in Oslo. 

"We see that heat waves in all areas on land will increase in their frequency and intensity. So we have experienced some really strong heatwaves in the past, especially in Europe. We had the the heatwave in 2010, the Russian heatwave, and we had 2018, also the last really big heatwave.

"And just imagine we have these kinds of hot summers that affect not only health, but agriculture, energy sector every summer. And this will be a big threat to the society.

"We need to understand better what are the impacts of hotter temperatures, heatwaves in the summer, higher ozone pollution, how do these interact and affect health. And also, what does it cost to, for instance, adapt to these changes that will come and also to mitigate. What do we need to do to reduce the impacts of climate and air pollution on human health."