Human activities, most notably worldwide fossil-fuel demand and rapid population and economic growth in the developing world, are accelerating environmental change and increasing pressure on ecosystems and services, challenging our social and economic well-being. HM Treasury has identified this issue as a key challenge that the UK must address in the next decade, a concern supported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, and the Stern Review.
LWEC is a major interdisciplinary research and policy partnership to tackle environmental change and the societal challenges it poses, and so to provide a firmer basis for people to deal with the unprecedented changes that the world will face over the next century. All seven Research Councils, working with partners in at least nine Government departments, will design the LWEC programme across the relevant research areas and policy and industrial sectors.
Through a 10-year programme, LWEC aims to provide: the knowledge, tools, predictions, solutions and business opportunities needed to increase resilience to, and reduce economic costs of, environmental changes such as more severe weather and reduced biodiversity; and the best information to enable sustainable management and protection of vital ecosystem services - such as clean air, fresh water, healthy soils, and flood and disease protection - on the time and space scales on which the economy is managed.
For more information, see: http://www.lwec.org.uk/