Origins of the "International Climate Change Information Programme"

The need for the "International Climate Change Information Programme" was identified during "Climate 2008", the world's first scientific conference on climate change held on-line on 3-7- November 2008. Climate 2008 - which is being followed by Climate 2009" - is an initiative led by the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences in partnership with a wide range of national and international organisations such as UNEP, UNESCO, WMO, IPCC, FAO and many others agencies.

In the context of Climate 2008, a meeting which was virtual in nature but nonetheless attended by over 2.000 participants from 162 countries, it became clear that there is a global demand for information on climate change and that there is a need for mechanisms which allow a broader understanding of what it means and how it affects people's lives. Due to its scope, it is necessary to consider climate change as a process influenced by various variables, as outlined in Figure 1. Therefore, the search for solutions to the problems caused by climate change cannot be uni-dimensional: it needs to be pursued in an integrated way.

Figure 1- Some of the variables that influence climate change

The creation of the "International Climate Change Information Programme" is a concrete step towards the goal of "climate change understanding for all", supporting the on-going efforts towards the search for solutions for the problems associated with climate change, an issue which is global in nature, but which needs to be supported by concrete regional and local efforts.