Climate Change research in the Basque Country
The Climate Change Strategy of the Basque Country 2050, passed in 2015, envisages targets of "cutting GHG emission by at least 40% by 2030 and by at least 80% by 2050, compared to 2005". As regards adapting to climate change, it sets the objective of "Ensure the resilience of the Basque territory to climate change".
In 2016, the call to award grants to the KLIMATEK I+B+G projects was held for the first time. Those grants were for R&D, and Innovation and Demonstration of Adaptation to Climate Change in the Basque Country projects, in order to promote the implementation of projects that decisively contributed to Objective 2 of the 2050 Strategy "to ensure the resilience of the Basque territory to climate change".
In KLIMATEK 2016 (PDF, 1 MB), 29 projects were entered and four were chosen (link to the summary):
- CLIMATE SCENARIOS, a project involving preparing high resolution climate scenarios for the Basque Country (PDF, 6 MB). This project has focused on obtaining climate projections for different time periods of the 21st century: 2011-2040, 2041-2070, 2071-2100. (link to the document)
- Water Vulnerability. From recent past trends to future ones. Adaption to new water scenarios (PDF, 14 MB). The project has sought to provide answers, with inherent uncertainties, to two questions from a time-limited approach: Where did we come from? Where does it seem we are going to? These are key questions for the knowledge underpinning the adaptation measures that must be taken for the territory (water resilience). (link to the document)
- Heat waves and health: impacts and adaptation in the Basque Country (PDF, 3 MB). The main objective has been to develop a step-by-step methodology describing the key aspects to help in the decision making as regarding prevention in terms of the impact of heat waves on health in the Basque Country which may better complement and adapt the current prevention procedure to the local conditions. (link to the document)
- NBS Urban, thanks to which a methodology has been developed to prepare municipal maps of the potential for the deployment of nature-based solutions as climate change adaptation measures, with a case study being conducted in the city of Donostia-San Sebastián.
BC3 Basque Centre for Climate Change, made up of 35 researchers from 12 countries, focuses on the following research lines: cutting emissions, climate and natural environment, climate and health and political climate. Its proven track record has been recognised as it is considered the most influential think-tank of Europe and the second in the world in climate change policy and economy, according to the International Center for Climate Change Governance.
The Basque Ecodesign Center drives the development of business policies and ideas through ecodesign, so that they help to improve competitiveness and prevent the emission of CO2 and other environmental impacts in the Basque Country, with the aim of being a benchmark in the European Union through a network made up of companies and the Basque Country.
Cie Automotive, Fagor Electrodomésticos, Gamesa, Iberdrola, OrmazabalVelatia, Vicinay Cadenas, Euskaltel and Eroski are the companies that make it up, while Ihobe, the Publicly-owned Environmental Management Company of the Ministry of the Environment and Territorial Policy of the Basque Country, acts as the driver and co-ordinator of the project.
The CIC energiGUNE is a cooperative research centre in the field of energy. Its core areas of action refer to basic research excellence, transfer of knowledge and results, and coordinating the R&D&i work on alternative energies being carried out by the different technological-scientific stakeholders (universities, technology centres, etc.) in the Basque Country.
The Biscay Marine Energy Platform (BIMEP) is an offshore facility to research, demonstrate and operate systems to harness marine energy, which allows the manufacturers of those systems to set up on the platform, either to operate-demonstrate (generating electricity) or for testing. The objective is to facilitate the transition of these technologies from the prototype phase to the commercial phase.
Beaconed and monitored area of 5.3 km2 closed off to shipping located off the coast of Armintza-Lemoiz (Bizkaia), with depths between 50 m and 90 m, located at 1,700 metres from the coast and a total energy evacuation output of 20 MW through four underwater cables.
Last modified date: