Ironically, it is the developed countries that have been, and still are, responsible for most human-generated GHG emissions, yet it is the poorest countries that are likely to be the most affected by its impacts.

Although Scotland contributes only around 0.2% of global greenhouse gases (GHGs), it recognises that this contribution is part of the problem, and that the country, therefore, has a moral responsibility to contribute to the solution by reducing its carbon footprint, and to demonstrate to the rest of the world that this can be done in a sustainable way.

Working together with overseas scientists, Macaulay researchers have been applying the approaches, tools and techniques they have developed in a Scottish context to understand the impacts of climate change in other areas of the world, how people there will adapt to the predicted changes, and how human-induced GHG emissions in those areas can be reduced.

Activities

• The EU FR7/03 COST Action "Expected Climate Change and Options for European Silviculture" (ECHOES)
  

• Impact of climate change on Chinese agriculture – a Defra-funded project to study the likely impacts of climate change on wheat, maize and rice crops in China

• Global climate change: climates of the future, choices for the present - Keynote paper at African Technology Policy Studies Conference “Science, Technology and Climate Change Adaptation in Africa”, 19-22 November 2007, Johannesburg, South Africa ( 300KB pdf)

• MERES (Methane Emissions from Rice Ecosystems) – modelling methane emissions from rice agriculture in Asia

• Deforestation – can deforestation and degradation of the world’s forests be slowed to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions?