Currently, there is a large, untapped market for climate services with gaps in the demand and supply. An EU-funded project is providing insight into the climate service market - reducing barriers for business and encouraging European market growth.
All-too-often it takes global disasters or looming events to bring countries together for a common cause. Climate change is perhaps the biggest 'event' of this kind, an existential threat driving international research cooperation in a new sustainable solution called solar-thermal electricity (STE). But it takes leadership to forge such a grand alliance of scientists, engineers, technicians and companies prepared to back progress in this field. Europe stood up when it was needed.
As climate change worsens, natural disasters like forest fires are becoming more destructive. Firefighters and other emergency service providers often feel outmatched. An EU-funded project is helping these first responders improve their coordination and equipment to keep Europeans safe.
A transparent system for monitoring and reporting CO2 emissions is needed to support climate-change mitigation goals. To this end, an EU-funded project is combining satellite and ground-based data with Earth system modelling to provide detailed information about worldwide anthropogenic CO2 emissions and their evolution over time.
Methane has a global warming impact 25 times higher than that of carbon dioxide and is the world's second most emitted greenhouse gas. An EU-funded project is developing new strains of microorganisms that can transform methane into useful and bio-friendly materials.
Scientists are focusing on technologies for storing heat as a means of increasing the share of renewables in the energy mix. As part of this push, an EU-funded project is testing new materials that perform well at very high temperatures.
Deserts and other sun-drenched regions are the ideal location for concentrated solar power plants, but where sunlight is abundant water tends to be scarce. EU-funded researchers are solving this conundrum by developing technologies to comprehensively reduce water consumption, enabling CSP plants to play an even bigger role in addressing the world’s energy and climate change challenges.
Analysis by EU-funded researchers studying the cycle of nutrients in farms across Europe will help reduce pollution, improve energy efficiency and make the agricultural sector more sustainable and innovative.
Thawing Arctic coastlines due to climate change will not only affect the people living there, it will also have global ramifications. The EU-funded NUNATARYUK project is analysing the consequences of Arctic permafrost warming to help policymakers and local communities develop adaptation and mitigation strategies.
EU-funded researchers planted, harvested, processed and analysed the life cycle of woody crops to establish how efficient and environmentally friendly they are as a source of fuel for electricity and heat.
