BalticClimate - Baltic Challenges and Chances for local and regional development generated by Climate Change | Umweltbundesamt

Background and Goals

The climate change is one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century. The climate change will also change our familiar environment. Communities, cities and regions, private citizens and businessmen alike will need to adjust to this. The overall framework is defined by international and national climate policies. However, it is up to the stakeholders themselves to implement these policies at the regional and local level and to adjust them to the specific requirements of their locations. At the same time, it is important to remember that the climate change does not only entail risks, but also offers opportunities for future development and competitiveness, depending on how successful the climate adaptation measures are.

The BalticClimate project with the English title "Baltic challenges and chances for local and regional development generated by climate change" has been working assiduously on climate protection and adaptation strategies.

The main project result is the "BalticClimate Toolkit" (visit: www.toolkit.balticclimate.org). The information it contains primarily addresses politicians, spatial planners and business people. They are to be supported in preparing and implementing suitable measures in response to the climate change. In this respect, the topic is prepared in such a way that it can be understood by everyone, even without a corresponding professional or scientific background. Moreover, the translations into the 12 languages of the Baltic Sea states guarantee a wide distribution.

The challenges and opportunities of the climate change were examined in 7 pilot regions. In-depth analyses focused on selected case studies in the areas of transport and mobility, energy, housing/construction and agriculture.

The main objectives of the project were:

• to enable municipalities, regions and local stakeholders in the Baltic Sea region to to deal with the issue of climate change in an integrated, cooperative, and sustainable way, in terms of day-to-day business as well as long-term strategies;
• to understand and proactively address the phenomenon of climate change not only as a challenge, but also as an opportunity for sustainable, local and regional development;
• to make municipalities and regions more competitive for future challenges and, in this way, to strengthen and maintain a common identity in the Baltic Sea region.

The focus was particularly on rural areas as well as smaller and medium-sized towns and cities in all the countries of the Baltic Sea region. Existing scientific knowledge on the climate change and on dealing with with it was to be taken into account at the implementation level. At the same time, scientists were able to acquire insights on the kind of information specifically required by the users.

From the outset, the three work packages "Climate change - material and analysis", "integrated solutions and capitalization" and "instruments" were aimed at making the findings and instruments as portable and easy to apply as possible, for the local authorities and other stakeholders they were intended for. Apart from the translation of the main outputs into all the languages of the region this was also achieved by numerous test runs of the instruments in relevant situations. In the context of the work package "public relations", a comprehensive application package was provided directly to all the communities, cities, and regions in the Baltic Sea region in order to multiply the effects of the project.

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