In an effort to anticipate the foreseeable transformations in the lives and livelihoods of human populations in a changing world, scientists, corporations, governments, and citizens across the globe are launching sustained investigations into the likely impact that climate change will have upon their immediate and longer-term future. Scientists have been issuing increasingly urgent statements about the gravity of the circumstance that confronts all of humankind, and with their findings in mind, diplomats from around the world are seeking to negotiate an international treaty to serve as successor to the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012.

     Until recently the United States government had the reputation of resisting or trying more indirectly to refute the mounting scientific evidence on global climate change. Under the newly elected government of President Barak Obama, however, this circumstance changed. On 16 June 2009 the Obama administration released a major report entitled: Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States which it called "...the most comprehensive and authoritative report of its kind." The report and all of the data behind it was made public through the United States Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), and within 24 hours it was the subject of hundreds of news articles and commentaries throughout the world.

     This American assessment report does not address the full scale of the international crisis of climate change, but it can serve as a useful example of what each smaller region within Earth's climate system can begin to examine in detail the likely impact of what climate change will mean to in one country after another. Countries that have not yet begun heir own assessments can review the American report with a critical eye focused on in what particular ways their experience will be different or in what ways certain their circumstances may prove to be analagous or parallel to different regions within America.

     During June of 2009, students of Cyprus International Institute came together in a "Cyprus Climate Change Workshop" as part of their work Global Climate Update course. As part of that course students were introduced to basic online resources relating to the climate of Cyprus and to materials available on parallel climates or circumstances throughout the world with direct relevance to unfolding circumstance in Cyprus.

     The work of the students in the June 2009 Cyprus Climate Change Workshop is assembled here and presented in "chapter" form . It is hoped that these June 2009 papers can serve as initial contributions toward buiding a more cumulative, comprehensive and regularly updated climate assessment reporting process in Cyprus in the coming years.