Climate change is widely recognised as the most serious environmental threat facing our planet today. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently published its Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) which concludes that warming of the earth’s climate is now indisputable, and that it is very likely that this is due to emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from human activities, particularly from the last half of the 20th century onwards.

Recognising the complexity of the problems to be tackled, climate change research at Macaulay Land Use Research Institute is organised into an interdisciplinary and cross-cutting Theme, drawing on expertise from the five Science Groups, Ecology, Soils, Catchment Management, Socio-economics and Integrated Land Use Systems.

The goals of the Climate Change Theme are to improve understanding of the interrelationships between changes in climate, land use, natural resources, and human communities, and to provide information at a range of spatial, temporal, and organizational scales that can assist policy-makers and practitioners in developing mitigation and adaptation mechanisms to ensure sustainable development.

• How is land use related to climate change?
• Who are we?
• What research do we do?
• How do we contribute to policy development?
• What work do we do internationally?

• 02/02/10: Project funded by the Forestry Commission and channelled through the partnership in the SDRC, entitled "Forest and Climate Change: a Socio-Economic Perspective", involving (the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute) Maria Nijnik, Guillaume Pajot, Bill Slee, Yan Xu, David Miller and Jan Bebbington (University of St Andrew) is now successfully completed.
• 29/01/10: "Carbon Capture: Sequestration and Storage". Issues in Environmental Science and Technology, 2010. by R E Hester and R M Harrison (eds) is now published by The Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge.
• 28/01/10: The EU FR7/03 COST Action "Expected Climate Change and Options for European Silviculture" (ECHOES)