Conducting a climate change risk assessment for the Government of Cyprus

Helping the Cyprus government form its first National Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change

Imperial College London contributes its extensive expertise on regional climate and atmospheric physics to help governments form policies on how to prevent and mitigate the harms of climate change.

Apostolos Voulgarakis (Department of Physics) was invited to be the lead climate expert for the first ever Climate Change Risk Assessment for the Government of Cyprus. Volgarakis’ had built relevant experience in utilising state-of-the-art climate models to explore issues of climate sensitivity, historical climate behaviour and importantly, climate projections. In particular, Voulgarakis and his research team studied interactions between atmospheric chemistry and the climate – for example, characterising the lifetime and climate effects of different greenhouse gases and trace pollutants.

As a result of his accumulated experience and expertise, Voulgarakis provided estimates of future climate change over Cyprus to the wide range of other impact scientists involved in agriculture, public health and many other key areas of environmental research. The result of their collaboration was the Evidence Report – a first-time study of the vulnerability of Cyprus to climate change. The report formed an important pilot for similar impact assessments for other countries in the Eastern Mediterranean area, including Greece.

Voulgarakis’ risk assessment then directly informed the first National Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change, which was approved by the Parliament of Cyprus, and the Cypriot National Action Plan on climate.