Clarifying Local Government Policymakers’ Needs on Climate Change Science and Technologies: Experiences of Science and Policy Deliberation at Co-Design Workshops in Japan

Abstract

This chapter clarifies the needs of local government officials for climate science and technologies and draws on future developments by science and policy deliberation in co-design workshops. To this end, first, the documents of local governments’ climate change adaptation plans were scrutinized, and it was examined how the scientific data were used for the plans. Second, interviews were conducted with local governments. Simultaneously, science and policy deliberation was conducted at a series of co-design workshops that involved over a hundred scientists and policymakers, who exchanged information on needs and resources. The main results demonstrate the following: (i) From the results of the scrutiny of the documents of local governments’ climate change adaptation plans, a higher need for scientific data was observed in irrigated rice cultivation, fruit cultivation, heat stroke, natural forest, and mudflow disasters for a shorter term and specific areas. (ii) From the results of the interviews, as one of the challenges, although there was no resistance to using the climate change projection data to formulate adaptation plans, at least in environmental bureaus, other bureaus responded differently. In addition, although population projections have been widely adopted, climate change projections are not at that stage. This may be due to the degree of uncertainty. (iii) From the results of the questionnaire surveys conducted after a series of nationwide co-design workshops, one of the most important lessons learned was that mutual understanding of the use of projection data between scientists and policymakers has not necessarily been promoted over time, although the degree of satisfaction with the workshops themselves has increased. This implies that further improvement in scientific literacy for policymakers and a deeper understanding of policy for scientists are required.