Sustainable climate mitigation and climate adaptation

The aim of the call is to create new knowledge for well-founded action plans for sustainable climate mitigation and climate adaptation. We intend to fund research programmes that take a broad approach and link reduced climate impact, climate adaptation and biodiversity and resilience (three linked perspectives). The programmes must deliver knowledge that can be applied in the national climate and environmental work and in the work with international negotiations linked to climate so that it benefits the climate, environment, and society. We particularly ask for knowledge relevant to achieving Sweden's long-term climate goals 2045 and beyond, which means a society with net zero and negative emissions.

The purpose is to connect issues around, and the interplay between, reduced climate impact, climate adaptation and restoration, conservation and strengthening of biodiversity for increased resilience, and find combinations of solutions for transformation that are long-term sustainable and feasible. The initiative should provide increased knowledge in needs and subject areas specified under the heading priorities below.

The main target group for the results are administrators and investigators at the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management who work with sustainable climate mitigation and climate adaptation. Other target groups are administrators at other authorities who work directly or indirectly with climate issues. The results from the programmes must also be able to support local and regional work with the implementation of policy instruments and measures, for example to help urban planners and the implementation of spatial planning. The Government Offices, the Climate Policy Council, the National Council of Experts on Climate Adaptation, environmental conventions, international working groups and the business community are other stakeholders.

The IPCC (2021) emphasizes that significant emission reductions are needed to limit climate change and meet the 1.5-degree target in line with the ambition of the Paris Agreement. The latest IPCC report shows continued increased global climate emissions (IPCC, 2022), which means that challenges have increased, probability to reach the goal has decreased and more needs to happen. The climate crisis and the crisis over the loss of biodiversity are in many ways linked. Both the IPCC and IPBES (Pörtner et al., 2021) emphasize that the crises around climate and biodiversity need to be addressed together and highlight the importance of working with nature-based solutions.

The transition to a climate-neutral society and then a resource-efficient society with net negative emissions is a challenge. With the support of available knowledge, many measures and instruments have already been put in place within Sweden's climate policy framework or are currently being prepared within several government assignments to steer in the right direction. At the same time, tightening of existing instruments is on the EU negotiating table with a view to 2030. However, achieving the goal of net zero by 2045 and negative emissions thereafter in a sustainable way requires new approaches and new knowledge.

Ongoing changes in the climate have different effects that entail challenging tasks for society and environment. Species and ecosystems face extensive challenges in terms of adapting to the new conditions. Climate change will exacerbate existing environmental problems and cause further degradation of ecosystems and loss of biodiversity. This in turn contributes to exacerbating climate change and its effects. Effective and urgent measures are needed to ensure the conservation of biodiversity and sustainable societal development that meets the effects of a changing climate. The EU's new strategy for climate adaptation (EU, 2021) and the national strategy for climate adaptation (Government, 2018) describe that a comprehensive knowledge base is required to develop effective and inclusive governance mechanisms and measures. The first report from the Swedish National Expert Council on Climate Adaptation also points to the need to integrate climate adaptation into the climate policy framework (National Council of Experts on Climate Adaptation, 2022).

Awareness and knowledge about the need and added value of jointly dealing with different crises has increased (for example, Bergström et al., 2020; Dinesen et al., 2021; Pettorelli et al., 2021). Coordination of crisis management work has so far been lacking and research has essentially been done in silos. An integrated approach will be required: to reduce climate impact; to strengthen the capacity of nature and society to cope with climate change; and at the same time ensure that other environmental and sustainability goals are achieved. As time is short, possible synergies need to be taken advantage of.

Climate mitigation needs to take place at the same time as other environmental work is strengthened, to contribute to meeting both the national and global goals for sustainable societal progress. It emphasizes the importance of measures, policy measure packages and strategies that consider the big picture. To be a driving force in environmental work nationally and internationally, as well as to design and influence policy development in accordance with Swedish priorities, authorities must have good knowledge and data. The role of the authorities includes proposing instruments and measures that lead to the achievement of the national climate objectives at the same time as the fulfilment of the Sustainable Development Goals.

We ask for applications that consider several of the above knowledge needs and subject areas and connections between them. Each application must take a holistic approach to the three perspectives (reduced climate impact, climate adaptation, biodiversity and resilience) and it is a requirement that all three perspectives are included in the application and a necessity that researchers from different disciplines collaborate.

A programme is a major cohesive research initiative that contains a maximum of eight sub-projects in a consortium. The programme is led by a program manager who is responsible for and controls content and budget, calls for appropriate recurring consortium and reference group meetings with relevant parts of the programme and actors and stakeholders. The programme manager is also responsible for contact with the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management. Each programme should furthermore employ its own research communicator and set aside resources for communication with authorities and other actors. Some collaboration with the possibly funded sister programme might be expected.

A mid-term evaluation of the programmes will be carried out and the latter part of the programme funding will be granted provided that the evaluation recommends a continuation.

It is important that the relevance for the work of the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management is clearly stated in the application. Large emphasis is placed on clarity of how the programme interacts across disciplinary boundaries within and between sub-projects.

The main applicant must hold a PhD and conduct research at a university, college, research institute, or government agency carrying out research as part of its mandate. The main applicant, the leading communicator, and the sub-project leaders must be affiliated to a Swedish organisation with a corporate identity number (”organisationsnummer”). All sub-project managers must have a PhD degree, but not everyone involved in the programme needs to be. 

If the main applicant and sub-project leaders were granted research funding from the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency within earlier calls, any due final report should have been submitted and approved to be considered for funding within this call. 

The closing date for applications for stage 1 is October 17th, 2022. Review of stage 1 applications will be performed as described in the Instructions for reviewers, programmes. From stage 1, a limited number of applications continue to stage 2 and submit a full-scale application where the statements from stage 1 of the review can be considered. Stage 2 opens in December 2022 and closes on March 1st, 2023. The goal is to allocate funds to two programs that complement each other.

• October 17th, 2022 at 14:00 C.E.T: Deadline for application stage 1
• December 2022: Stage 2 opens
• March 1st, 2023 at 14:00 C.E.T: Deadline for applications stage 2
• April 2023: Funding decision
• May to June 2023: Granted programmes start

Senior research officer Karin Hansen
E-mail: karin.hansen@naturvardsverket.se
Phone: 010-698 13 28

Senior research officer Neda Farahbakhshazad
E-mail: neda.farahba@naturvardsverket.se
Phone: 010-698 12 50

Senior research officer Bengt Fjällborg
E-mail: bengt.fjallborg@havochvatten.se
Phone: 010-698 60 60

EU:s strategi för biologisk mångfald för 2030.

Bergström, L., Borgström, P., Smith, H.G., Bergek, S., Caplat, P., Casini M., Ekroos J., Gårdmark A., Halling C., Huss M., Jönsson AM., Limburg K., Miller P., Nilsson L., Sandin L. (2020). Klimatförändringar och biologisk mångfald – Slutsatser från IPCC och IPBES i ett svenskt perspektiv. SMHI och Naturvårdsverket. Klimatologi Nr 56. (pdf)

Dinesen, L., Højgård Petersen, A., Rahbek, C. (2021). Synergy in conservation of biodiversity and climate change mitigation in Nordic peatlands and forests – Eight case studies. Nordic Council of Ministers. (pdf)

EU:s gröna giv.

Glasgow-klimatpakten från FN:s klimatmöte i Glasgow (2021). (pdf)

IPCC (2021). Summary for policymakers. In: Climate Change 2021: The physical science basis. Contribution of Working group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change (Masson-Delmotte et al, Cambridge University Press. 

IPCC (2022). Klimat i förändring 2022 – Att begränsa klimatförändringen.

Nationella expertrådet för klimatanpassning (2022). Första rapporten från Nationella expertrådet för klimatanpassning. (pdf)

Pettorelli N., Graham N.A.J., Seddon N.,da Cunha Bustamante M.M., Lowton M.J., Sutherland W.J., Koldewey H.J., Prentice, H.C., Barlow J. (2021). Time to integrate global climate change and biodiversity science-policy agendas. Journal of Applied Ecology, DOI: 10.1111/1365-2664.13985.

Pörtner, H.O., Scholes, R.J., Agard, J., Archer, E., Arneth, A., Bai, X., Barnes, D., Burrows, M., Chan, L., Cheung, W.L., Diamond, S., Donatti, C., Duarte, C., Eisenhauer, N., Foden, W., Gasalla, M. A., Handa, C., Hickler, T., Hoegh-Guldberg, O., Ichii, K., Jacob, U., Insarov, G., Kiessling, W., Leadley, P., Leemans, R., Levin, L., Lim, M., Maharaj, S., Managi, S., Marquet, P. A., McElwee, P., Midgley, G., Oberdorff, T., Obura, D., Osman, E., Pandit, R., Pascual, U., Pires, A. P. F., Popp, A., Reyes-García, V., Sankaran, M., Settele, J., Shin, Y. J., Sintayehu, D. W., Smith, P., Steiner, N., Strassburg, B., Sukumar, R., Trisos, C., Val, A.L., Wu, J., Aldrian, E., Parmesan, C., Pichs-Madruga, R., Roberts, D.C., Rogers, A.D., Díaz, S., Fischer, M., Hashimoto, S., Lavorel, S., Wu, N., Ngo, H.T. 2021. IPBES-IPCC co-sponsored workshop report on biodiversity and climate change; IPBES and IPCC. DOI:10.5281/zenodo.4782538.

Regeringens proposition 2017/18:163 Nationell strategi för klimatanpassning. (pdf)