Might it be possible to make better plants more quickly than we do today? And without the public objection that accompanies genetic manipulation? Climate change means that this is now an urgent question.

Scientist Peter Freeman is managing a project that is probing the clock and metabolism of plants, called TiMet . Partners to the project include star biologists in the Germany, Spain, Switzerland and the UK, all working to gain better insights into what make plants tick.

Climate change and socio-economic factors are interdependent . If agriculture intensifies in a particular region, that would have an impact on water sector, resulting from the irrigation use.

Tim O’Higgins is a marine biologist in Scotland who has focused on those vital ecostystem services provided by estuarine and coastal waters.

The European Commission, on 29 th April 2013, slapped a two-year ban on insecticides suspected of killing off bee colonies. This follows the European Food Safety Authority finding that they pose a high acute risk to honey bees.

Our data on the natural world is uncertain. And so are the models we use to make sense of it. The Uncertweb project, funded by the EU, aims to clarify both of these sources of doubt.

We are used to the idea of vulnerable environments and species. We are also familiar with cultural vulnerability. For example when traditional peoples meet seductive modern ways of life.

With climate change, flora and fauna shift their seasonal inner clock.  For example, fruit tree blossom earlier than previous years.

We can blame all sorts of things on the weather. But a stomach bug?  It seems unlikely. Yet, scientists say greater quantities of rainfall and bigger storms will lead to more stomach upsets in parts of Europe.

The EU’s driest region is Murcia in Spain. But it is also an area of intensive agriculture for such arid land.

Making planning decisions about cities today means keeping an eye on climate change predictions.  More flash floods are expected, for example.

“It’s around one metre, bang there in the middle”. Professor Tim Lenton, professor of Earth Systems Science at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, sounds very pleased when he hears that policy-makers now officially revise the estimated sea level rise for London to around +94 cm within a century.

Lovingly tended to as far as Kristianstad in Sweden, palms have never had it so good in Northern European gardens. The UK, which has not had a seriously cold winter for about 10 years, is a case in point.

London planners should prepare for the possibility that the sea level rise will be up +94 centimetres by the end of this century.