Climate change is an area of environmental science with far reaching social, political and cultural implications. How members of the public think about and engage with the science of climate change - and the consequences for everyone's lives - is a crucial piece of the puzzle for making progress on climate change as a society. Effective adaptation policies, national targets for energy efficiency, and rapid decarbonisation through energy technologies all depend on committed and sustained public engagement. This means that in addition to a solid evidence base on climate science, the science of communicating climate change is critical too The Climate Consortium project aims to provide the 'infrastructure' to ensure that efforts to engage the public on climate change are coordinated, effective and based on the most up-to-date evidence from academic studies and tried-and-tested practitioner expertise. The project team includes internationally recognised specialists on public engagement, high profile science communicators and a blend of climate science, social science and communications expertise. Using our networks and experience, we will ensure that the Climate Consortium is an inclusive one year programme, producing evidence-based but accessible resources to catalyse public engagement with climate change at a national scale. The first stage of the Climate Consortium project involves an 'audit' of the diverse pool of expertise on public engagement with climate change that already exists in the UK. Rather than 'reinvent the wheel', we will identify opportunities for better coordinating and drawing value from existing initiatives, including producing a publicly available register of climate change public engagement expertise. But public engagement experience is only one side of the equation - central to the Climate Consortium project is working closely with diverse representatives of public groups (including Refugee Action and regional Community Centres) to identify and establish possible channels for effectively reaching beyond the 'usual suspects' with climate change communication, and instead creating a dialogue with diverse communities and who bring new and distinct perspectives. A key output for the project will be a website that captures areas of agreement and 'consensus' between experts on public engagement (and areas of disagreement), and presents them in an easy-to-use tool for public engagement practitioners. This is crucial so that the diverse range of individuals and organisations undertaking public engagement on climate change in the UK can access a trusted and reliable source of guidance on strategies and approaches for effective communication and dialogue.

Our vision is to create an enduring, multidisciplinary and independent research community strongly linked to industry and capable of informing the policy making process by developing new knowledge and understanding on the subject of the shipping system, its energy efficiency and emissions, and its transition to a low carbon, more resilient future. Shipping in Changing Climates (SCC) is the embodiment of that vision: a multi-university, multi-disciplinary consortium of leading UK academic institutions focused on addressing the interconnected research questions that arise from considering shipping's possible response over the next few decades due to changes in: - climate (sea level rise, storm frequency) - regulatory climate (mitigation and adaptation policy) - macroeconomic climate (increased trade, differing trade patterns, higher energy prices) Building on RCUK Energy programme's substantial (~2.25m) investment in this area: Low Carbon Shipping and High Seas projects, this research will provide crucial input into long-term strategic planning (commercial and policy) for shipping, in order to enable the sector to transition the next few decades with minimum disruption of the essential global services (trade, transport, economic growth, food and fuel security) that it provides. The ambitious research programme can only be undertaken because of the project's excellent connection to shipping's stakeholders across the govt. non-govt and industry space. This is demonstrated by in excess of 35 organisations writing significant statements of support and including contributions to the project of 1.6m in-kind and 160k cash. The commitments of stakeholders with this breadth of knowledge and understanding is crucial both to: - Development of a relevant proposal (all Tier 1 partners of LCS and many Tier 2 and others were heavily involved in the development of the contents of this SCC proposal) - Ensuring that the research is undertaken using data and experience that can maximise its credibility, but importantly also - Guaranteeing a direct pathway to impact in all the key governance and commercial stakeholders of the sector. Shipping is a global industry and its challenges must therefore be considered in a global context. However, to provide focus for the research we will concentrate the application of our global modelling and analysis for understanding the impacts of changing climates on three key specific sub- global components of the system: UK, SIDS (Small Island Developing States) and BRICS shipping. The UK, for its importance to the funder and the UK stakeholders engaged in our project, the BRICS and SIDS because of their central role in the policy debate due to their high sensitivity to changing climates Research Excellence will be ensured through research across three interacting research themes: - ship as a system (understanding the scope for greater supply side energy efficiency) - trade and transport demand (understanding the trends and drivers for transport demand) - transitions and evolution (understanding transport supply/demand interactions) The research undertaken will be both quantitative and qualitative, apply for the first time new data and modelling techniques and be deployed to answer a series of cross cutting (themes) research questions. Shipping in Changing Climates will put the UK at the forefront internationally of research into the shipping system and inform the UK and EU debates around the control of its shipping GHG emissions.