This section outlines recent developments of methods and tools that are used to anticipate the effects of climate change—the broad approaches to climate change impact and vulnerability assessment. It considers future research and development needs, particularly to facilitate more informed policy decisions.

Based on interviews with experts and reviews of impacts methodologies, seven questions frame recent progress and needs for impacts methods and tools:

1. What are the appropriate scales of analysis for impact assessments?
2. What should be the baselines for comparison?
3. How should integrated scenarios of climatic and socioeconomic change be used?
4. What are the prospects for assessing the impacts of climatic extremes and variability?
5. How can transient effects be included in methods and tools?
6. What is the recent progress in methods for assessing adaptive capacity?
7. How can vulnerability be related to policies for reducing GHG emissions?

Conclusions are provided in the following subsections; the succeeding subsections provide further insight.

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