Challenges to the sustainability of climate services in Europe

Marta Bruno Soares,Carlo Buontempo

doi:10.1002/wcc.587

Abstract

AbstractClimate services have emerged as a research and operational field in recent years. This development has been underpinned and supported by significant research, funding and agenda‐setting efforts such as the Global Framework for Climate Services internationally and the Roadmap for Climate Services and the Copernicus Climate Change Service in Europe. The fast pace at which this field is developing raises a number of key challenges that need to be critically examined and addressed to ensure the future development and sustainability of climate services in Europe. This opinion piece highlights a number of challenges currently threatening the viability of climate services including the complexity of the concept of climate services; the complex landscape of complementary research and development areas relevant to climate services; existing rights to freely access and use climate services; current limitations to funding structures and mechanisms and how that impacts on the development of climate services; the emphasis on co‐production as a precondition to climate services development; and the limited role of the social sciences in the research and operational field of climate services. Effectively addressing these challenges will require a commitment from the scientific and practitioner communities to engage in critical and reflective debates around the future conceptualization and operationalization of climate services in Europe. This paper aims to provide critical input to stimulate a necessary and overdue debate around the sustainability and future of climate services in Europe.This article is categorized under: Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Knowledge and Practice

Highlights

Despite the development of climate science for more than a century (Vaughan & Dessai, 2014), climate services as a research and operational field has only emerged in recent years (Brasseur & Gallardo, 2016; Hewitt, Mason, & Walland, 2012)
How can we effectively address this challenge as a community? How can we define meaningful and useful ways of differentiating the disparate meanings of climate services to avoid conflicting interpretations and help us better manage expectations? And what are the best approaches for distilling this complex concept into useful, manageable and practical interpretations?
This opinion article aims to highlight some of the key challenges that, in our view, can hinder the long-term sustainability of the research and development of climate services in Europe

Summary

Introduction

Despite the development of climate science for more than a century (Vaughan & Dessai, 2014), climate services as a research and operational field has only emerged in recent years (Brasseur & Gallardo, 2016; Hewitt, Mason, & Walland, 2012). The transformation of climate-related data—together with other relevant information—into customized products such as projections, forecasts, information, trends, economic analysis, assessments (including technology assessment), counseling 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 include data, information and knowledge that support adaptation, mitigation and disaster risk management (European Commission, 2015a)

Objectives

Conclusion