In the beginning of the 21st century climate change has become a central
challenge of global policy making and in terms of sustainable
development. Unless it can be stopped in time, there will be
incalculable consequences for the economic and social development of a
globalized society. The member states of the European Union and the EU
itself has to come forward in the vanguard of climate policy. Climate
protection requires not only the use of renewable energy sources, energy
saving and improvement of energy efficiency, but also mitigation of
adverse impacts through nature conservation and preservation of
biodiversity, better water management, CO2 sinks, as well as an improved
environmental education. This book confronts the most urgent questions
facing us now from a general and also from a Cyprus' specific point of
view: The outstanding tableau of authors from Europe and Cyprus brings
the right expertise to have an insight view into the challenges the
island's nature is already facing in the context of climate change. This
book is the result of the second "Conference on Sustainability" of the
German-Cypriot Forum in Cooperation with Friends of Nature Cyprus, which
took place in November 2009 in Nicosia. One of the biggest problems of
Cyprus is water scarcity. The island has a semi-arid climate and limited
water resources which depend mainly on rainfall. However, rainfall in
Cyprus is unevenly distributed with considerable regional variations,
water resources are scarce and expensive to exploit and droughts occur
frequently. In this book you find proposals for improving water
management in Cyprus. Another chapter is the look at renewable energies.
Cyprus as a sun island is very suitable for solar energy. The so-called
bio-energy is the most problematic of all renewable energies. Not only
because of severe competition for limited space and water resources for
nature conservation and food production. To be economically feasible
bio-energy is normally grown in huge mon
