Lead Convener: F. Sylvestre (Institut de Recherche pour le D�veloppement, CEREGE, Aix-en-Provence - France)

Humans began to transform the Earth system several thousand years ago. At the same time, cultural and technical developmentswere strongly conditioned by environmental change, including climate change. Paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic studies canprovide information on the transition of systems from natural variability (in the absence of major anthropogenic perturbation) tosystems influenced and modified by humans.An improved understanding of the integrated history of human-environment interactions and their legacy effects on futureenvironmental changes is vital to the design of management strategies for a sustainable future.

Lead Convener: A. Fischer (Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, Paris - France)

The oceans are key regulators of climate. They help reduce the rate of atmospheric warming by absorbing about 30% of annual carbon emissions, and 90% of the excess heat in the climate system since 1971. This buffering effect is not without consequences on ocean chemistry and ecosystems. The oceans have become 26% more acidic since the start of the industrial revolution, and are more stratified and less oxygenated. Different ocean regimes including the tropical, polar, and deep oceans, western and eastern boundary current systems, each play unique roles in the global ocean climate, and have their own knowledge challenges. These climate-induced changes will affect the ocean, its biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human well-being in ways that we are only beginning to understand. Long-term, globally-coordinated and high-quality sustained ocean observations underpin our knowledge of the role of the ocean in climate. They allow us to monitor changes and feed models that predict the evolution of climate and its consequences on ecosystems, and to provide a basis for climate services. This knowledge informs and supports government climate and environmental policies. The session will conclude with ocean observing and modeling challenges, gaps, opportunities, and recommendations.

Lead Convener: P. Friedlingstein (University of Exeter, Exeter - UK)

Human activities transform the global carbon cycle and the cycles of other greenhouse gases, aerosols and reactive atmospheric compounds, leading to major changes in the concentrations of these species. This has largely contributed to the observed climate change but also to a rise in surface ocean CO2, and a redistribution of carbon in terrestrial ecosystems. One of the headlines of the IPCC AR5 is "Cumulative emissions of CO2 largely determine global mean surface warming by the late 21st century and beyond", meaning that a given climate target (e.g. 2�C) implies a limited amount of cumulative CO2 emissions. The exact quantification of this amount depends on the properties of the Earth system and on the mix of CO2 and non-CO2 forcing. A detailed and integrated understanding of anthropogenic emissions is therefore fundamental to support decisions related to mitigation. The transdisciplinary nature of emissions information presents both opportunities and challenges for researchers and policymakers, and there are still large uncertainties in emissions quantification at global and regional scales. The session will promote discussions on issues related to global emissions and to the climatic implications of cumulative budgets of greenhouse gases and short-lives atmospheric compounds.

Co-convener: D. Swingedouw, Universite de Bordeaux, UMR CNRS 5805 EPOC, Pessac - France; C. Deser, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Climate analysis section, Boulder - USA

While the evidence for anthropogenic climate change continues to strengthen, scientific and societal interest is increasing concerning possibility of decadal prediction at the regional scale. One of the main sources of uncertainty to such predictions lies in the inherently chaotic character of the atmospheric and oceanic circulation, their interactions through climatic modes and their imprints on climate variability at multidecadal time scale. The session objectives are to present the current knowledge on: (i) The extent to which natural variability have obscured the climate system response to anthropogenic in the past (hiatus or acceleration periods)? (ii) The extent to which such changes will limit the predictability of continental and regional changes over the next decades. (iii) The physical understanding of natural variability as well as the known sources of uncertainty, their possible connection and reduction. (iv) The need and necessary ingredients to move towards a probabilistic approach to assess risks related to regional climate change. We expect studies using different complementary tools such as climate models, spatial or in situ measurements and even paleoclimate reconstructions, which can help to provide a wider distance concerning theses events and the natural variations of the climate system.

Lead Convener: H. Kreibich (German Research Centre for Geosciences, Section Hydrology, Potsdam - Germany)

Extreme hydrological events, particularly floods but also low flows and droughts, have huge economic and social impacts. Hazards and risks seem to have increased and further increases are expected due to global change.

These risks are the result of extreme hydrological events in combination with human activities and their feedbacks. These process interactions are complex and heterogeneous in space and time and difficult to understand and model on local, regional and global scales. The question is open, how the different drivers of change that act in a given catchment superimpose each other, and to which extent different drivers are responsible for changes in the hydrological cycle and in the risks due to hydrological extremes.

Thus, the main aim of this session is to present and jointly discuss results from various disciplines on the effects of climate and global change on hydrological extremes and their consequences at different time-scales and in various regions of the world. In bringing together experts from the natural hazards and climate change community we aim to advance the knowledge and scientific discourse on detection and attribution of changes as well as on modelling future changes.

Lead Convener: C. Reyer C. (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam - Germany)

Despite increasing numbers of studies, knowledge about the impacts of climate change on natural and human systems as the world moves from 0.8�C of current warming towards a 2�C, 3 or 4�C world is fragmented. This pertains not only to the frequency and intensity of impacts but also to their interaction and the crossing of thresholds. Furthermore, cascades of impacts can be expected in which physical and biophysical changes trigger crucial impacts in human systems across different sectors that may turn out to be irreversible � at least on human timescales � and affect population groups in different ways. Moreover, the reality that yesterday's and the risks that today�s socio-technical-political decisions profoundly constrain possibilities of systems for coping with current and future impacts through mitigation or adaptation is eminent and provides grounds for structural alternative decisions.

Conveners: R. Betts (University of Exeter, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, Exeter - UK); B. O'neill (National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder - USA)

This session focuses on risk assessment and transformative solutions relating to high-end climate change and uncertain but severe risks. Key questions include: what states of regional climates and weather extremes are implied by particular levels of global warming, eg, 2�C, 4�C or 6�C? How likely are these to be reached, or over what timescales? To what extent can impact risks be avoided by reducing the level of warming? How can models be advanced to better represent adaptation processes and limits, and cross-sectoral and cross-scale interactions to support the testing of systemic solutions? Can thresholds be identified beyond which current policies become unfit for purpose or impossible to implement, and how does this inform the need for new policy approaches and transformational adaptation in the face of high-end scenarios? What methods can be used to maximise the active participation of relevant stakeholders in defining high-end scenarios? We will also explore the ethical dimensions of how to relate to infinite and existential risks in our culturally diverse and fragmented world. A range of perspectives are encouraged from different fields of study in natural and social science and the humanities, in order to promote inter-disciplinary discussion of this complex topic.

Lead Conveners: N. Nakicenovic (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg - Austria); J. Rockstr�m (Stockholm Resilience Center, Stockholm university, Stockholm - Sweden)

Today, the necessary integrated comprehensive quantitative understanding of scenarios for achieving sustainable development, accounting for the various inter‐linkages between the economy, technology, environment, climate, human development and planetary boundaries, does not exist. With the adoption of the SDGs, the world will set out very clear and ambitious global goals across social, economic and environmental areas, and although there is recognition that there are interactions between and among these goals (e.g., between energy and climate, between food security and ecosystem, etc.,) there is, as yet, no attempt to assess the viability of achieving these multiple social‐economic‐environmental goals simultaneously. The World in 2050 Project (TWI2050) will explore the implications of the necessary transformative sustainable development pathways and the possible �degrees of freedom� to meet economic development goals within a safe operating space of a stable planet.

Lead Convener: N. Le Bris (Sorbonne Universit�s UPMC Univ Paris 06 - CNRS LECOB, Marine station / oceanological observatory, Banyuls-sur-mer - France)

Global exploration efforts progressively reveals the unique biodiversity of deep-sea ecosystems The long-ignored diversity of deep-seabed habitats and communities, and their tremendous heterogenity, is now increasingly accessible with the development of submarine technologies.

Though their sensitivity to climate change mostly remained unconstrained, growing evidences of indirect effects from atmospheric forcings and rapid ecological responses are supported by observations. Significant climate-driven impacts on ocean biogeochemistry are furthermore hypothesized from climatic scenarios.

To develop effective conservation strategies in the deep-sea, it is thus of crucial importance to assess the combined effects of climate change and resource exploitation. The dynamic drivers of these particular ecosystems, however, just start to be understood, and so are their capacities to respond to disturbances and the retroaction processes they sustain.

Advanced approaches and tools (sensors, omics, data processing, imaging) set a new frame for the development of a significant international momentum on this overlooked but largest component of the Earth system in the context of climate change.

Lead Convener: V. Duvat-Magnan (UMR 7266 University of La Rochelle - National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Geography, La Rochelle - France)

This session will address the coastal impacts of climate change through three key topics. First, it will focus on small islands to explore their differentiated vulnerability profiles in the face of climate change based on the consideration of the drivers controlling vulnerability. Indeed, the diversity of islands needs to be better apprehended and recognized for relevant adaptation strategies to be designed and implemented. Second, this session will focus on sea level rise and address its consequences for physical, natural and urban environments, under different global warming scenarios, and investigate where and when different greenhouse gas emissions scenarios might challenge our ability to adapt to future coastal hazards. Third, this session will deal with the impacts of climate change on mangroves. Sea level rise could promote landward mangrove migration, while high levels of atmospheric CO2 could enhance mangrove tree growth. A lower frequency of extreme low temperatures should facilitate a poleward expansion of mangroves, whereas extreme events should lead to mangrove retreat or demise. These processes are recognized variably worldwide. Yet, climate change impacts associated with direct, growing anthropogenic disturbances, should drastically alter mangrove ecosystem services.

Lead Conveners: A. Mishra (UNESCO, Paris - France) ; H. Lins (US Geological Survey, Reston - USA)

The freshwater cycle, including groundwater, is embedded in the climatic system. The freshwater cycle is also a strong structural and functional driver linking processes, locations, scales, uses and hazards, and socio-institutional entities and dynamics. The freshwater cycle also provides a key interface between the atmosphere, the geosphere, the biosphere and the anthroposphere; and between the basic needs, especially for water, food, energy and health. Although the fundamental physics behind climate processes is rather straightforward, the impact of climate change on local water resources is difficult to quantify with limited uncertainty (IPCC 2014).

Lead Conveners: E. Critchley (Grantham Institute, Imperial College London, London - UK); S. Lavorel (CNRS, Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine, Grenoble - France)

The interaction of climate change with other drivers of global change amplifies existing risks to social-ecological systems, and creates new ones. The potential magnitude of these impacts on biodiversity and ecosystems and associated uncertainties call for a policy response, but this will require profound changes in approaches to decision making.

Adaptation to climate change should be adopted as a long-term component of economic, social, political and cultural transformations, rather than focusing on avoiding or accommodating change in the short term. Therefore new approaches to adaptation are urgently required.

This session will discuss what we currently know about ecosystem responses to climate change, the implications for conservation and ecosystem services management, and the tools, practices and processes that can help facilitate the changes required to help encourage appropriate forms of adaptation and transformation.

Conveners: C. Orazio (EFI, EFIATLANTIC, cestas - France), S. Luque ( University of St Andrews - UK), J-L. Peyron (GIP Ecofor - France), R. Jandl (University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences - Austria)

Forests provide multiple ecosystem functions simultaneously and are an integral component of human well-being in many societies. Climate change alters forestry substantially via a changing pattern of biotic and abiotic disturbances and a change in habitat characteristics. Forests also mitigate climate change by removing CO2 (a major Greenhouse Gas) from the atmosphere. Adaptation of forest management is challenging because accurate information is required on future climate at the stand scale, and we need to understand the resilience of tree species and the long-term impact of recommended management interactions. Global efforts of creating a knowledge-based bio-economy call for an ample availability of forest products and more efficient forest management. Finally, a climate-smart forestry encompassing an efficient and versatile utilization of wood along a cascade of products and services including climate regulation will be required.

Lead Convener: M. Herold (Wageningen University, Wageningen - The Netherlands)

The session is motivated by three key questions: (1) Where and how can agriculture and forest sectors contribute to climate change mitigation in a more integrated manner and supported by climate smart agriculture? (2) What are the synergies between mitigation and adaptation strategies those sectors could put in place to cope with climate change? (3) How can sustainable tree-based bioenergy be as a solution to development, adaptation and mitigation?

Key-note speakers from INRA, ICRAF, and Wageningen University and CIFOR will highlight new scientific findings addressing these questions; leading to a moderated discussion to feed into current UNFCCC negotiations on a broader land use agreement, and to improved options for implementation activities on the level of countries and landscapes.

Co-conveners: C. Martius (Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Bogor - Indonesia) and M. Deheza (CDC Climat Recherche, Paris - France)

REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation plus enhancing forest carbon stocks) is being discussed,tested and refined since 2007 as an innovative approach to forest conservation for climate mitigation. Through REDD+, forest users would receive financial incentives to conserve, restore and sustainably manage forests. The REDD+ policy mechanism has matured and is expected to be included in the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement for the post-2020 period.
In this session, we will discuss the political arrangements, knowledge and technical, financial and institutional tools that will be needed to make REDD+ an efficient, effective and equitable mechanism that also provides co-benefits.

Lead Convener: P. Mudliar (iihs, Bangalore - India)

Semi-arid regions (SARs) are widely recognised as climate change hotspots. These areas have an intrinsically high sensitivity to climate coupled with high vulnerability driven by local and higher level (national/transnational) political-economic factors. Climate change will almost certainly exacerbate existing sensitivities and vulnerabilities, and possibly trigger social-ecological tipping points / thresholds in the next several decades. This session will bring together perspectives on climate-resilient development from multiple scales � local to national to regional � with a focus on identifying: (1) the key sensitivities and vulnerabilities to climate change in SARs; (2) how different actors conceive of human development in the context of climate change; (3) what tensions and similarities exist between the different actors� framings, at local, national and supra-national scales; (4) how this diversity of framings has undermined or enriched adaptation strategies and practice in SARs; (5) what has been tried in terms of building climate resilience � what has worked and not worked, and why; (6) how future climate change will affect barriers and enablers of human development in SARs; and (7) whether we need to rethink human development in SARs in light of climate change.

Lead Convener: T. Long (Wageningen UR, MST, Wageningen, Gelderland - Netherlands)

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is a high profile concept, rapidly emerging as a key global framework to address the diverse challenges agriculture faces due to climate change. CSA involves alterations to production systems and value chains that simultaneously improve food security and agricultural productivity, build adaptive capacity and resilience, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions where possible. Efforts are underway at unprecedented scales to implement CSA. This session will seek to consider and identify the grand challenges that CSA involves and actions to be undertaken, whilst advancing knowledge and understanding of the CSA framework.

Lead Convener: K. Rashidi Ghadi (ETH Zurich, Zurich - Switzerland)

Cities play a critical role to battling the climate change as they represent more than 50% of world population, comprise 80% of GDP worldwide and also, based on recent estimates, they will be responsible for up to 70% of global emissions. However, despite the obvious relevance in tackling the mitigation efforts, cities are not fully involved in climate change dialogues. This can be linked to the fact that their importance is not entirely understood among the policy makers and also, the scope and level of involvement is not clear. Moreover, those cities (local governments) that have already placed mitigation programs in their agenda complain about the various problems that they have experienced in this journey. These barriers can emerge from a number of different factors such as lack of a strong institutional framework to enforce the implementation of policies or insufficient financial resources for investments in infrastructures or a blend of both.

Building on these concerns, this session intends to open a debate platform for the issue of citywide mitigation efforts, pointing out the prevailing challenges and discussing the ways of removing them.

Lead Conveners: M. Leitner (Environment Agency Austria, Environmental impact assessment and climate change, Vienna, Austria) ; F. Musco (IUAV - Italy)

The policy and practice link between CCA and DRR is vital as both communities focus on society-risk dynamics. However, each field does so through different actors and institutions, and with different time horizons, research methodologies, policy frameworks and patterns in mind (Schipper and Pelling 2006). These differences can lead to suboptimal strategies and duplicated efforts. As climate change is likely to make extreme events more frequent and intense, it becomes paramount to mainstream CCA and DRR into both development practice and planning at the sub-national, national and international levels (IPCC 2014).

Lead Convener: C. Pritchard (The University of Edinburgh, School of Engineering, Edinburgh - UK)

Resilience requires building some level of redundancy into communities and their operation, such that partial failure does not lead to collapse, and so that favourable changes may be harnessed rapidly and effectively. In turn this requires equity (social and economic), and the development of a range of adaptation options, drawing on diverse sources of knowledge.
Through its programme of �Climate-Smart Villages�, CCAFS is developing strategies that increase agricultural productivity sustainably, using targeted agricultural technologies and climate information services. Community management of water resources, nutrients, agricultural residues, livestock and energy supply and demand, enables a flexible response to unpredictable weather and growing conditions. A further programme �Tracking Adaptation, Measuring Development� (TAMD), is operated by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in Rwanda, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Nepal.
Information and communication technologies have become accessible even to the poorest in many countries, and have the potential to provide access to adaptation options, livelihood strategies and opportunities; to the extent that communities, armed with early warnings of climate-related incidents, may begin to embrace change rather than resisting it.

Lead Convener: M. Imbard (Minist�re de l'�cologie, du developpement durable et de l'�nergie, Direction de la recherche et l'Innovation, La D�fense - France)

How to interact to produce climate adaptation research, between scientific communities and stakeholders, at local or international, also between North and South countries?
The co-production, in particular in the adaptation research facing to the climate change, is presented as a key concept guiding research, policies, economics issues and social practices at regional or national levels until the major international initiatives.The coproduction process is addressed to different stakeholders (local inhabitants, economic sectors, policy-makers) and to scientists (social and natural, North-South and South-South cooperation in different sciences) and integrates different methodologies involving all actors and their knowledge.
The session welcomes theoretical and empirical contributions that illustrate the integration and hybridization of different forms of expertise (legal, scientific, local), but also how they can clash. The presentations could be based on local and regional case studies with relevance for climate change, examples of the gaps and difficulties for leading adaptation researches and also the use of good practices

Lead Conveners: S. Treyer (NSS - Nature Sciences Soci�t�s - Editorial Board, Nss, Paris - France); S. Jasanoff (Harvard Kennedy School, Pforzheimer professor of science and technology studies, Cambridge - USA)

Global negotiations on climate change seem to progress only very slowly, while climate scientists insist on the emergency to take action, and while local collective initiatives for climate adaptation and mitigation seem to flourish. In order to better account for this gap between discourses, existing initiatives, and capacities to coordinate at different scales of action, and in order to identify innovative ways to debate and progress on the climate problem, a diversity of social and human science disciplines are working with their specific approaches to reframe the climate debate. Renewing the framing and the representations of the problem and of its solutions can be a major step to also change the way our societies face climate change.

Lead Convener: F. Lefevre (INRA, Ecology of the Mediterranean Forests, URFM, Avignon - France)

Considering the global frame of social-ecological systems, biodiversity degradation in terms of composition, functions or both, impacts the ecosystem services. The biodiversity structure and functions result from the complex interplay of ecological and socio-economic processes that operate at different spatial and temporal scales. In order to develop mitigation and adaptive strategies, there is a crucial need to anticipate changes in biodiversity related to climate change. The session will address two challenges in this regard, illustrated on agro-forest systems from different continents. The first challenge is to detect early signals of biodiversity degradation and vulnerability. The second challenge is to assess the interactive impacts of climate change and biodiversity management on ecosystem services. To face these challenges, multiple-scale, interdisciplinary and process-based approaches start to be developed.

Lead Conveners: N. Nakicenovic (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg - Austria); JC. Hourcade (International Research Center on Environment and Development (CIRED), Paris - France)

This session will discuss a) the interplays between energy consumption patterns, urban dynamics and land-use patterns, b) how to interconnect models of technological change with macroeconomic and sectorial models c) how to better interconnect models projecting development pathways and models of the earth systems.

Lead Convener: K. Latola (University of Arctic, Oulu, Finland)

This session will focus on the detection and attribution of Arctic climate change and the physical processes within, including the water cycle, extreme events, impacts and perception, as well as future projections. Secondly the impacts of climate change to human societies, the adaptation to Arctic climate change and the consequences and challenges of the climate change for the local and indigenous communities will be discussed. The session will try to find solutions to the question on how an open, productive and respectful dialogue between policymakers, business and industry leaders, local and indigenous communities and scientists can be established for increasing the mutual understanding and for identifying the new ways of working for ensuring the economic and societal benefits.

Lead Convener: DJ. Sonwa DJ. [email protected] (1)
(1) (CIFOR - Center for International Forestry Research, Forest and Environment Program, Yaounde - Cameroon)

Sub Saharan Africa is facing serious challenges related to climate change. Climate change is having a dramatic effect on the diversity of ecosystems and rural communities present in this highly vulnerable part of the world. While in West Africa, extreme drought is the main driver of vulnerability, in the Congo Basin the humid tropic context is characterized by the gradual changing and variability of some climatic factors such as temperature and rain fall. Several ambitious initiatives had been adopted to face climate change. In 2007, the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative was adopted and has begun to bring together different stakeholders to restore and create ecosystems that place environmental and human well-being at the heart of its goals. Since 2008, adaptation of forest landscapes has gradually become part of the agenda of CIFOR and other COMIFAC partners. The current session is calling for scientific communications (oral and poster) on adaptation to climate change in West and Central African forest landscapes. Communications on Ecosystem Base Adaptation (EBA) will be particularly welcome as well as those that address synergy between adaptation and mitigation.

Lead Conveners: A. Coudrain (Institut de recherche pour le d�veloppement (IRD), Research unit espace-dev, Montpellier - France); S. Serrao-Neumann (Urban Research Program, Griffith University, Cooperative research centre for water sensitive cities, Brisbane - Australia)

Information for decision-making - How to engage in future thinking or plan for the long term

This session brings together research outputs for increased awareness and resilience to climate change threats and impacts. Understanding and responding to global climate change requires the integration of a plethora of information with the added urgency of needing rapid and transformative individual and institutionally-based responses. Worldwide contributions comprised in this session include the production and synthesis of multi-disciplinary climate-related information that enables transformative pathways and that support decision-making and proactive action at different scales: global-international, national, regional, institutional and individual. Examples are related to, inter alias, integration and collaboration between countries, participatory vulnerability assessments, community-based warning systems, people�s perceptions and attitudes towards potential climate change impacts, education and training processes, processes for synthesizing scientific information, science-policy interface, and cognitive barriers to understanding climate change. The global scope and increasing immediacy of climate change impacts makes topics covered by this session particularly relevant to guide local and international decisions and support proactive adaptation strategies.