Informing Decisions with Climate Change Information

Abstract

This chapter offers a synthesis of perspectives to better communicate climate information for decision-making. Climate communication does not begin by considering how projected climate change influences long-term investments for infrastructure planning, or what far-sighted policy can manage social and environmental change. When centred on useful application, climate change communication begins by considering what information is already known and what drives the need for new knowledge. Traditionally driven by scientists, communicating what is known about climate change is increasingly influenced by the decision-makers who will use this information. Better understanding is needed of the ways in which existing and new mechanisms develop observations and analytic outputs to become the knowledge needed, especially considering the limits of what can be known. How information is derived influences how it can be communicated, from numeric model outputs to scenario visualizations. By involving stakeholders in both generating and communicating climate information from its initial development, many more actors can consider when, and how, to use knowledge of climate change.