Climate change is undoubtedly one of the biggest challenges facing humanity. In permanently altering our environment and the availability of certain natural resources, this phenomenon risks compromising our ways of life and will have a significant impact on the social and political fabric of communities throughout the world.
Understanding the factors and predicting the consequences for our environment and populations are key challenges. This knowledge will enable scientists, policy makers, industry and, more generally, every one of us to modify our behaviours in order to limit the impact on the climate.
In accordance with the Group's commitments in the fight against climate change, in early 2011 the BNP Paribas Foundation launched the “Climate Initiative” programme in close collaboration with the BNP Paribas Delegation for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
The CSR Delegation and the Foundation have set up a scientific committee to select the projects. Led by Philippe Gillet, vice-president of the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale of Lausanne, it brings together a number of leading researchers: Joanna Haigh (Imperial College London), Jean-Pascal Van Ypersele (Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Catholic University of Louvain), Thomas Stocker (Physics Institute of the University of Berne) and Riccardo Valentini (University de Tuscia, Viterbo).
The Scientific Committee has selected five projects:
- AAA: access to the climate archives at Fontainebleau (France)
- eFOCE: long-term effects of ocean acidification, experiments conducted in the Mediterranean Sea
- PRECLIDE: climate forecast for the next 30 years
- Global Carbon Atlas: making current CO2 emission data available to all
- Subglacior: a sonde that accelerates ice drilling, thus making the studies of old ice easier to understand climate change
> Watch the educational films and learn more about these projects
