Keywords

The European Research and Innovation Roadmap for Climate Services

Rather than setting a definitive research and innovation agenda, this Roadmap (EC (RTD) 2015) offers a framework to engender discussions among relevant actors and stakeholders, thereby providing a means of exploring and finding shared solutions and pathways that enable the development and use of climate services that provide benefits to society. In so doing, the intention of such was that these benefits included informing solutions (climate action).

For the purposes of the Roadmap, climate services were defined as follows:

‘…covering the transformation of climate-related data—together with other relevant information—into customised products such as projections, forecasts, information, trends, economic analyses, assessments (including technology assessments), counselling on best practices, development and evaluation of solutions and any other service in relation to climate that may be of use for the society at large.’

As such, these services were seen as including data and information, reflect knowledge that support adaptation, mitigation and disaster risk management and, as such, could be described as comprised of four interrelated components as follows:

  • Guidance informing climate adaptation and resilience journeys, often outlined in terms of informing risk assessment or risk management and adaptation planning and implementation frameworks;

  • Data and information to support these assessments and processes (including climate and socio-economic data and information);

  • Tools and resources to support these assessments and processes; and

  • Enablers including knowledge brokering, capability development, use journeys, case studies, training/capacity development, communication activities and communities of practice.

In this sense, they are seen as offering a range of services and products intended to better inform decision-making and their implementation by the spectrum of decision and policy makers—within the public sector across all levels of government, within communities, within civil society, businesses and industries, and for individuals. By doing so, climate services are seen as having the potential to become ever-green enablers of smarter, systemic and timely climate action.

What Has Been Accomplished and What Are Still Seen as Gaps?

The Roadmap identified three research and innovation challenges comprised of nine main activities and 25 specific actions, addressing that which could facilitate the development of a climate service market capable of enabling and empowering climate action”.

  1. 1.

    Enabling market growth—assessing the nature, growing and demonstrating the added value of a climate service market;

  2. 2.

    Building the market framework—supportive communities and infrastructure; standards, quality assurance and control, access and legal aspects; and international cooperation; and

  3. 3.

    Enhancing the quality and relevance of climate services—supportive information frameworks, strengthen the scientific basis and relevance; and climate information and users’ needs, innovations and products.

Over the past five years there have been some reviews and shared perspectives on research and innovation gaps undertaken under various guises. The following provides highlights of the results of three of these.

Following a stakeholder engagement workshop (November 2017) held at the request of the European Commission (linked to the informal DG RTD European Climate Services Roadmap Implementation Working Group), a position paper was prepared by Climateurope (2018) summarising deliberations in the form of recommendations for climate services science, research and innovation. The main messages and advice were grouped under the following:

  • Setting standards, quality control, quality assurance and evaluation [Linked to Roadmap Challenge 2].

  • Legal and ethical considerations [Linked to Roadmap Challenge 2].

  • Authoritative voice [Linked to Roadmap Challenge 2].

  • Knowledge transfer/brokering, communication and user engagement [Linked to Roadmap Challenge 2].

  • Capacity building [Linked to Roadmap Challenge 2].

  • Mainstreaming climate services [Linked to Roadmap Challenge 2 and Challenge 1].

  • Balance between underpinning science, research, innovation and market growth [balance investments across the three Roadmap challenges].

  • Sustainable climate data sources [Linked to Roadmap Challenge 2].

As indicated, the resulting stakeholder assessment is consistent with aspects of the Roadmap challenges and activities. The apparent focus of the identified gaps suggests that at that stage in time the engaged stakeholders (users, providers and researchers) believed there was a need to continue efforts focusing on building the market framework and also recognised the need to retain an appropriate balance in investments that continued supporting the underpinning research and associated infrastructure, in addition to supporting innovations. The highlighting of this latter area was to some degree the result of concerns regarding the increasing focus on innovations.

Climateurope (2019) provides recommendations for the Horizon Europe (HEUR) framework programme on research needs for climate modelling and climate services. These recommendations were elaborated within Climateurope by a group of European experts in climate modelling and climate services and were prepared under the coordination of a small group of scientists from various European research institutions participating in the project. Recommendations directly related to climate services were presented as follows:

  • Supporting the formulation of adaptation strategies—systematic availability of impact-oriented projections and up-to-date near-term predictions downscaled to local scale, process understanding, models and infrastructure, downscaling, along with guidance to support selection, aggregation, and use of the local climate information. [Linked to Roadmap Challenge 3].

  • Understanding requirements, decision-making context and foresight for climate services—research should contribute to increasing knowledge towards reaching societal goals including by triggering cross-pollination between social and natural sciences to include the human dimension into climate services research. [Linked to Roadmap Challenge 1].

  • Enhancing diffusion of innovation and information for climate—operationalising climate services to facilitate adoption of innovative practices that support adaptation today and in the longer-term [Linked to Roadmap Challenge 1].

  • Assessing the value of climate services—better understanding of the underlying values (expected and potential ecological, social, ethical and economic value) and why some undervalue climate services is needed to increase the pull for climate services. [Linked to Roadmap Challenge 1].

  • Standardizing climate services—to generate trust across supply and demand there is a need for a coherent and agreed upon set of authoritative standards for the overall value chain. [Linked to Roadmap Challenge 2].

  • Strengthening the links between the climate modelling and climate service communities—benefit for both communities in term of informing and rationalising the pull for outputs from climate modelling and impact communities’ activities and informing the potential for additional (and potentially more) relevant climate services based on research directions and outputs. [Linked to Roadmap Challenge 2].

As suggested, these recommendations are consistent with and build on the challenges and activities comprising the Roadmap. There breadth reflects the interests and perspectives of the community engaged in developing and articulating this set of recommendations. One point of interest is that this paper was developed for the HEUR cluster identified as ‘climate science and solutions’ and the recommendations reflect to some degree the emerging focus on ‘solutions’ within the European science and policy communities.

A workshop held 09–10th June 2020 under the auspices of the JPI Climate ERA4CS to support the further implementation of the JPI Climate Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) included consideration of future research needs in support of climate services. Among the challenges highlighted were as follows:

  • Many initiatives supported by research projects stop before reaching the stage of providing a stand-alone, operational service, even when they have been successful in meeting user requirements. [linked to the need to operationalise climate services].

  • The majority of potential users are not yet convinced of the value of climate services [Linked to Roadmap Challenge 1].

  • Users do not necessarily see climate change as a standalone risk and prefer an integrated approach addressing all risks. [Linked to Roadmap Challenge 1].

  • The development of CS is hampered by both scientific and communication difficulties.

    On the climate science side:

    • Seasonal and decadal predictions are still of insufficient quality to convince most users that climate prediction is a mature science. [Linked to Roadmap Challenge 3].

    • Longer term (century) climate simulations suffer from a large dispersion of model results (e.g., future precipitation in Africa). [Linked to Roadmap Challenge 3].

    • Climate models often have an insufficient resolution to deliver relevant results for users. [Linked to Roadmap Challenge 3].

    On the communication side:

    • CS still use terminology which is not understood and often misinterpreted by most users—need for standardised terminology and quality assurance. [Linked to Roadmap Challenge 2].

    • Knowledge elements resulting from research could provide the basis for future climate services; however, realising this potential is challenging due to limits in translational capabilities, including across disciplines [Linked to Roadmap Challenge 3].

  • There is a need for a ‘platform’ (or a network of ‘platforms’) to facilitate sharing experiences and lessons learnt and collaboration on mutually interesting challenges (enhance complementarities and minimise conflicts and duplication). [Linked to Roadmap Challenge 2].

  • Need to shift from a focus on supporting incremental adaptation to also supporting transformational adaptation, including transitions. [Linked to Roadmap Challenge 1—understanding user needs].

  • Lacking an overarching framework and metrics for evaluating climate services, including consideration of relevance, usability and legitimacy in addition to credibility [Linked to Roadmap Challenge 2].

  • Exploring and identifying good practice business models [Linked to Roadmap Challenge 1].

  • Enhanced level of inter- and trans-disciplinary in science supporting climate services [Linked to Roadmap Challenge 3].

  • Coordination at the European level in scenario development, including use as well as development, would enhance adaptation and resilience considering interdependencies and the systemic nature of climate risks and solutions [Linked to Roadmap Challenge 2].

Conclusions and Recommendations

In 2015, the Roadmap recognised that there was a great potential for enhancing the climate service sector based on its perceived value to society. The demand for such services was seen as increasing but in need of encouragement including by increasing the marketability and quality of the products and services available (enhancing the service push) and used (enhancing the service pull). This understanding of the state of the market remains true today and is increasing. The breadth of the demand-side of the climate service market has broadened and deepened as a result of emerging policy requirements and understanding of the need for action, including the following:

  • The climate-resilience and low-carbon focus within the European Green Deal and similar initiatives elsewhere;

  • The ever-growing focus on a climate-resilient and low-carbon focus for COVID-19 recovery investment; and

  • The increasing demands by the investment and banking sector related to supporting transition and physical risk management related to economic sustainability concerns.

The broadening and deepening of the demand are further evident considering the development of the proposed EU Horizon Europe missions, specifically ‘Accelerating the transition to a climate-prepared and resilient Europe’. The mission board in presenting their proposal recognised the fundamental importance of climate services. It also has been suggested that without climate services, this and the other missions—Regenerating our Ocean and Waters; 100 Climate-Neutral cities by 2030—by and for the citizens; and Caring for Soil is caring for life—would be ‘missions impossible’.

A particular aspect of this change in the market that warrants highlighting in the context of adaptation modelling is the increased focus on services supporting solutions and actions as evident in the European Green Deal and the EU Horizon Europe missions. As such, to be effective and relevant, climate services will need to specifically develop and focus products and services that directly inform and support solutions and actions.

Investments by identified actors, including Horizon 2020, in the context of responding to the challenges identified within the European Roadmap have had impacts. These impacts are evident in increased understanding of aspects of the supportive sciences, increases in the scope, relevance and accessibility of service and in efforts directed at facilitating the market pull. The extent to which these are attributable to the investments still requires further assessment. In addition, considering that the Roadmap was launched six years ago (2015), the scope and nature of investments made to address the identified challenges, the evolving nature of the climate service market and of the related policy and practice landscape, many believe that in addition to an assessment of impacts, there is also a need for a systematic assessment of remaining and emerging challenges.

The breadth of such an assessment should include addressing questions regarding future directions among which are as follows:

  • To what extent are requirements for solution- and action-supportive climate services being reflected in the market (demand and supply)?

  • To what extent are climate products and services currently available and under development able and recognised as being able to support and inform climate actions (resilience, adaptation and mitigation) and related processes? Consider the perspectives of those providing and those using those services and products.

  • To what extent are current research and innovations efforts/directions and related funding considering the need to support the evolution in climate services that evolving requirements are and will demand?

  • Are innovations that could be directed at enhancing the relevance, usability, legitimacy and credibility of solution-based climate services and products consistent with what are and will be required to inform actions as reflected in the European Green Deal and EU Horizon Europe missions?

In addition, I would suggest there is an overarching process-based question that also requires consideration:

  • Are processes and support mechanisms that are intended to facilitate the transition of research/project-created products and services to operations sufficient/effective? What could be done to further facilitate this transition?