Methodologies and tools to support climate change mitigation and adaptation actions

Tackling climate change requires integrated approaches that combine mitigation and adaptation strategies and take into account local climatic, socio-economic, environmental and political contexts. The paper assesses how high-resolution multi-sectoral modelling and participatory bottom-up co-creation can be integrated into a unified methodological framework to identify synergies and trade-offs between climate mitigation and adaptation at the local level based on three European projects DISTENDER, KNOWING, and NEVERMORE. The projects develop methodologies and tools that serve to improve the understanding of climate risks in a multi-scale approach, assess the effectiveness of adaptation and mitigation measures as well as their interdependencies, and involve stakeholders in the development of a set of strategies. Through workshops, consultations and co-creation exercises, the projects foster collaboration between scientists, policy makers, businesses and local communities thereby ensuring the sustainability and applicability of the resulting methodologies, strategies and tools. Each project employs a transdisciplinary research approach that integrates climate modeling, socioeconomic analysis and participatory processes to identify synergies and trade-offs between adaptation and mitigation actions. To support decision making, the projects develop various digital tools, such as decision support systems (DSS), interactive applications and knowledge databases. These tools synthesize complex climate data, socioeconomic indicators, relevant adaption and mitigation policy measures, and future scenarios into accessible formats for policy makers as well as civil society. The paper summarizes and analyses the approaches and results of the three projects and their contributions to the advancement of knowledge on climate risks and the development of actions against climate change.