The anticipated impacts of climate change on grassland systems and appropriate management responses have been reviewed extensively, though the emphasis has been on European temperate and North American rangeland systems. This paper summarizes the relevant impacts of climate change and then discuss the opportunities for genetic improvement of forage species with respect to: drought tolerance and water use efficiency, salinity tolerance, flood tolerance, tolerance to elevated ground level ozone, nutrient dynamics, forage quality, and potential role for the introduction of new species or ecotypes. It also considers future opportunities with respect to grassland design utilizing state of the art approaches in the context of the broad systems level understanding.