Preconceived ideas on adaptation to climate change are numerous (e.g. “the poor are the most vulnerable to climate change because they lack adaptive capacities” and “adaptation is foremost a local scale issue”) and have consequences on scientific research, the implementation of adaptation and international negotiations. Their persistence is essentially due to a relative lack of comprehensive knowledge on adaptation, including on influential factors, underlying processes (political, social, economic...), the role of environmental conditions, relevant spatial and temporal scales, levers and barriers. In order to promote a holistic, systemic and contextualised understanding of adaptation and vulnerability to climate change, CapAdapt project will focus its research on adaptive capacity with the ambition of elaborating new scientific bases for the development of integrated analyses. The project will be based upon fieldwork in 2 low-lying coastal areas (Bangladesh and Kiribati) that are characterised by strong differences in terms of geography, relationships to the environment, cultural values, etc. Their comparison will contribute to highlighting the various drivers of adaptive capacity: spatial configuration, ecosystems’ sensitivity, societal cohesion, economic diversification, political and institutional structure, living conditions. Therefore, the scientific objective of CapAdapt is to provide a comprehensive assessment framework of the determinants of adaptive capacity, at the crossroads of local and national scales, and of their relative weight in various contexts. An operational objective of the project is to show how a better understanding of adaptive capacity (driving factors and processes) may inform crucial current issues on adaptation to climate change: (i) its implementation, i.e. how can adaptation processes and strategies be implemented in a more efficient way? On which levers should they be based upon and which barriers might they encounter? (ii) the improvement of the international adaptation funds’ disbursement criteria, by providing donors with criteria that are non exclusively economic-related and thus by favouring the support of a diversity of policies and projects; and (iii) future environmental migrations, i.e. by enhancing the understanding of climate-related determinants of migration and of the means to design appropriate national and international policies. Ultimately, CapAdapt aims at raising decision-makers’ and other stakeholders’ awareness on the need for adopting a comprehensive understanding of adaptive capacity when elaborating projects and policies that have an influence on vulnerability and adaptation to climate change. At the same time, CapAdapt intends to favour a better understanding of climate change adaptation challenges by the general public, which is fundamental for reducing vulnerability and guaranteeing the feasibility of adaptation strategies.

On March 11, 2011 a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck off the coast of Tohoku, in north-eastern Honshu. The temblor triggered a tsunami that measured more than 40 meters in height in places. More than 15,000 people have been confirmed dead, with another 7,000 missing (feared dead) and more than 5,000 injured. Nearly 200,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed. The proposed project, DEVAST, is a fundamental research project that seeks to collect ephemeral empirical evidence that is at urgent risk of being lost if not collected soon. DEVAST aims to look at the chain of impacts that was triggered by the earthquake throughout the Japanese society, from the immediate disaster response to the long-term perception of risk. A key innovative component of this project is that it seeks not only to understand the immediate response to the disaster, but also its long-lasting impact in the Japanese society and abroad. Thus These impacts will be considered not only on the local level, but also on the international level, through a comparison with France. The project is organised around two overarching themes that represent key milestones in the chain of impacts: an analysis of the disaster response, focusing in particular on the management of the evacuation, and the evolution of the perception of risks. Each of these themes constitutes a core task of the project. A third task will then bring together these two themes in a comparative perspective, seeking to analyse how democracies deal with disasters. Finally, a task is devoted to the coordination and management of the project, and a fifth task deals with the dissemination of the project’s results.

A growing number of local authorities have the strong will to take concrete steps to tackle climate change by the implementation of local climate plans. Originally of an indicative nature, these plans are becoming more stringent in phase with the progressively more ambitious national and European targets. Their elaboration therefore increasingly requires studies that use a sound and rigorous economic approach. The scientific ambition of the project ?Integrated Territorial Economic Approach for Climate’ (AETIC in French) is to establish the basis of a generic, exhaustive and rigorous methodology for implementing cost effective climate and energy policies at the scale of urban territories. This methodology will be applied to the Grenoble Community of agglomeration and will lead to the analysis of its Local Climate Plan. The approach adopted in this project aims to identify, quantify and analyse in economic terms the whole set of GHG emission reduction options for an agglomeration in the three following major sectors: - The transport sector in connection with ?land-use’ and urban dynamic issues and the development of large scale infrastructure projects. - The building sector and the issues of thermal rehabilitation of the existing building stock. - The production and distribution sector of local and/or renewable energy. Consequently, the different abatement options identified will be organised by merit order according to their potentials and costs (through sets of Marginal Abatement Cost curves) so as to build an economically efficient GHG abatement program. In this study, the definition from the outset of two contrasted and systemic transport/land use scenarios will structure the choice and the possibility of implementing emission abatement options in the building and energy sectors. This articulation reflects the taking into account of the systemic and incremental dimensions of policies and technology implementation in the prospect of sustainable urban development. The project is developed for the agglomeration of Grenoble but one of its objectives is to test generic methodologies for the establishment of Local Climate Plans that are applicable to other cities.

This project contributes to improve the research in the South by associating researchers of the South on the issue of human rights always in situation of conflict and resistances faced with the universalism of these rights depending on international conventions. This project is a comparative legal research on relations between human rights and environmental disaster. We can notice that social sciences literature as regards disasters is very weak especially on law. The legal aspect of the disasters, mainly present at the level of the prevention and organization of the assistance mechanisms, is not very interested in the impact upon the human rights and on the way of the society face the disaster. This is an environmental justice issue. Indeed, the social inequalities and the situation of dependence of the victims of disasters make them particularly vulnerable. A natural or industrial disaster is always a social disaster. But human rights don’t concern only the victims; they concern also the public and private rescuers whose rights and obligations according to the human rights are to be taken into account. The role of the human rights in relation with environmental disasters has been too often ignored or under estimated as a resilience issue and tool. Thus, taking into account human rights during the disaster is the heart of the problems because of the emergency. Are all human rights always available during the disaster? Are there legal or practical derogation? It will be also necessary to study the relationship between human rights and environmental disaster before and after the disaster. Many international and regional organisations just begin to become aware of these complex relationships. During and after the disaster is the big issue of ecological refugees either international refugees or internal displaced people. The research proposes to use the draft convention on the international status of environmentally-displaced persons as a legal case study. This convention was drafted by the responsible of this project (OMIJ- CRSDP- CRIDEAU and the CIDCE). It applies in all types of disasters as well natural as accidental which affect at the same time man and the environment. It would not be pertinent for the human rights to limit them only on the climate change refugees. We want to evaluate the relevance of this draft international instrument, confronted with the current rules of international human rights law relating to migrations as to the comparative national laws in four continents (Europe, Africa, Asia, South America) and six countries (Argentina, Brazil, United Republic of Cameroon, Tunisia, Turkey, Vietnam).