Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a fundamental tool for integrating environmental dimensions into the decision-making processes. A number of studies and guidelines have suggested that EIA has the ability to address climate change issues and that it can provide a suitable entry point to incorporate considerations of climate change impacts and associated adaptation within existing modalities of project design, approval, and implementation. Consideration of climate change in projects requiring EIA is increasingly discussed in international professional literature.

In this context, both impacts of projects on climate change (in terms of greenhouse gas emissions) and impacts of climate change on projects must be included. This is the outcome of a general acceptance among EIA practitioners that large-scale and long-term investment infrastructure projects can be affected by climate change related impacts and will require changes to EIA practices.
 
After the course, participants will have a basic knowledge of climate change science and concepts. They will also acquire a broad picture of climate change tools currently available to environmental assessment practitioners and how they should be used in EIA. Focus will be on available information and climatic trends projected for Southern Europe.

The training course will follow the IPCC Climate Change Integrated Framework depicted in the following figure.

Miguel Coutinho is the secretary-general of IDAD, Institute of Environment and Development, based in Portugal, and was President of the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA) from 2014-2015.

He started his scientific work in the study of air pollution, specifically in meteorological modeling and dispersion of air pollutants. Later, he focused his interest on the environmental levels of organochlorine compounds and on the role of impact assessment in decision-making. Currently, he works in environmental impact assessment (EIA) and on strategic environmental assessment (SEA). He has recently participated in climate change related projects, including both mitigation and adaptation. Miguel is an environmental impact specialist who has over 20 years of working experience in international environmental consultancy projects in Brazil, Ghana, Guyana, Iceland, Indonesia, Mozambique and Portugal.