The impacts of climate change and global warming can be felt far beyond the location where the event occurs, creating conflicts of interest. Direct impacts include destruction of natural resources and the agro-economy, loss of life, human resettlement and migration, and damage to infrastructure and the environment. This centre researches risk, vulnerability, resource depletion, and possible mitigation and adaptation solutions as a point of reference for country-specific policy efforts.

Paradigm shifting in higher education (HE) has made society realize that every profession demands competent professionals to have a balanced development across all educational sectors. The issue of climate change is yet to be perceived either as an economic or social developmental phenomenon. Consequently, HE provides less attention to climate change. This centre explores how HE can discover a concrete and substantial way to contribute to handling climate change.

The dialogue on low-carbon green growth and progress towards long-run sustainable economic development has been increasingly emphasized to address climate change. The range of timescales, consequences, perspectives and methods are still open to dispute. This centre serves as a reference point for country-specific green-growth economic development and sustainability studies, since trade does not take place in a vacuum.

Food security, self-sufficiency, and sustainability issues related to climate change are a real concern for long-run visions. There is a clear relationship between climate change patterns and the agro-economy. Policymakers are worried about future consequences, making scenario-based policy modelling essential. Research activities will visualize alternative guidelines and potential paths that concerned policymakers could take in their planning strategies.

A new challenge in addressing climate change is how to involve dimensions of physical and social science in new modelling techniques. This challenge must account for economic development demands and effective climate change adaptation/mitigation. Multidisciplinary modelling must enable new effective techniques taking account of national agendas, foreign climate policy, future country-specific road-maps, market preferences, and technology changes — since climate change is a long-term matter.