The plethora of activities around adaptation and climate resilience, witnessed over the past few years from both the public and private sector domains, are cause for comfort and encouragement. There has been a genuine sense of determination, on the part of policy makers and practitioners to tackle the inevitable impacts of climate change. The ground has been prepared for much intensified adaptation efforts in the years to come. But much could be gained in making these efforts count. Among others, the following represent opportunities to improve the current practices for the provision and use of climate information in supporting climate-resilient and adaptation decision making.
6.1 Provision of climate information
On the supply side, climate scientists and researchers could be more mindful of and transparent about the implications of uncertainties associated with climate information for specific decision contexts or questions. This may entail the development of a comprehensive mapping of climate resilience decisions and the associated type of climate information required. Based on this, high level good practice principles could be developed to define what is acceptable and what is to be avoided. Public bodies (e.g. standard organizations, planning authorities, public procurement agencies) could work with research institutions to develop common data sources and associated access protocols.
For commercial service providers, to the extent possible, it would be helpful to disclose details of key datasets, particularly if they are from public sources. It would also help inspire public confidence to be open about the key assumptions made about the selection and use of climate information in their off-the-shelf analytics offerings.
6.2 Use of climate information
Given the wide range of climate resilience decision contexts and subsequently the highly varied climate information needs, much could be gained through coordinated efforts to develop (industrial) standards and good practice guidance. First, there is a need to update existing infrastructure design standards to reflect the changes in climate-sensitive design parameters. The responsible entities for doing this would differ across jurisdictions. But bilateral and multilateral development agencies, among others, can play an important role here, in terms of supporting technical and institutional capacity development, facilitating the sharing of knowledge and good practices.
Second, there is a need to develop sector- or industry-specific good practice guidelines on the use of climate information to support climate-resilient decision making within existing sector policies and practices. Although notable progress has been made in some sectors (e.g. examples from MDBs, national guidance from NZ, UK, ISO climate risk assessment standards), much could be done to make this more systematically and more specifically on the type of climate information required to support certain decision questions.
Last but not least, for the users of climate information, it is important to be clear about the climate resilience decision question, be able to articulate the appropriate type of climate risk analyses and specify the required climate information. This could be achieved through working internally within organization, with or without support of external experts, to thoroughly understand the potential impact channels of climate change on the organizations’ strategies, policies and ongoing operations. For example, many corporates and financial institutions have been creating new roles with climate risk management mandate, or working with expert service providers to build internal technical capacity. Once organization is in a position to ask the right questions around what climate information is needed (instead of what is available), the providers of such information can work with more clarity and focus to meet the needs. This would also enable more meaningful interactions between the developers and users of climate models, hence initiating a virtuous cycle of co-production of climate information.
6.3 Towards a climate information ecosystem
Last but not least, given the technical complexity and deep uncertainties involved in the provision and use of climate information, one would be utterly disappointed if (s)he looks for ready answers to climate risks. It is clear that there is no easy replacement of ongoing dialogue and engagement. There needs to be much more direct engagement between climate science community and businesses. It is often attempting to out-source highly technical tasks such as detailed climate-resilient design of critical infrastructure or physical climate risks of a portfolio of financial assets. As willing as the contracted service providers are to do their best to deliver, it pays to have ongoing discussions on the business or decision context and to help identify what matters most when it comes to manage uncertainties associated with climate model-based projections about future risks. Such ongoing dialogues would be facilitated through the recruitment of in-house climate risk roles within major corporate and financial institutions. A more engagement-based, as opposed to one-off contractual, approach to sourcing and using climate information would both enable the appropriate use of robust climate information and drive the scientific innovation that the business community needs.
As climate risk management is mainstreamed into public and private sector decision making in the years to come, a new generation of professionals need to be trained to serve as “climate translators”. In this regard, universities and research institutions have a real opportunity and responsibility to produce a new generation of climate services professionals. In writing his preface for the country’s climate resilience and recovery plan 2020-2030, the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Dominica calls for educational institutions to guide students into careers and professions that respond to areas of greatest national needs (Government of the Commonwealth of Dominica, 2020).