The ‘last mile’ for climate data supporting local adaptation

Louis Celliers,Sergio Rosendo,María Máñez Costa,David Samuel Williams

doi:10.1017/sus.2021.12

Abstract

Non-technical summary The ‘last mile’ is a transportation planning term that describes the movement of people and goods from a transportation hub to a final destination; a local place such as a home or a shop. This is the final step of the logistics process that unites the product with its new owner. We present and explain challenges of science-guided adaptation at the local level, and how this is an equivalent ‘last mile’ challenge for climate adaptation. Technical summary The ‘last mile’ issue, a term used in transportation planning, describes the movement of people and goods from a transportation hub to a final destination, a local place such as a home or a shop. This is the critical final step of the logistics process that unites the product with its new owner, and the point of the value chain. This analogy aptly describes the last steps between presenting scientific evidence of climate change to decision-makers for use in local adaptation and planning. Climate change data (observational and model simulation data e.g. climate change projections and predictions) remain under-utilised, especially by local institutions and actors for which adaptation is a priority. The assumptions and assertions of the classical data–information–knowledge–wisdom are challenged, and a derivative form of the information hierarchy is proposed. Elements of the classical information hierarchy are offset by four balancing elements of access (to data); usability (of information); governance (of knowledge) and politics (of wisdom). These balancing elements and their relatedness coincide with newer models of innovation relating to the interaction between different stakeholders across the different levels of governance, the inclusion of stakeholder expectations, transparency and accountability. Social media summary Climate data to wise decision-making in the ‘last mile’: a novel perspective on science-guided local adaptation.

Highlights

The chain of events that result in the practical use of climate science at the local level is referred to the ‘last mile’ challenge for climate change evidence to become actions in support of climate change adaptation
The ‘last mile’, is a term used in transportation planning that describes the movement of people and goods from a transportation hub to a final destination, a local place such as a home or a store
Social entropy dictates that the mere existence of useful information does not imply that an act of change is imminent or even likely (Mavrofides et al, 2011)

Summary

Introduction

The chain of events that result in the practical use of climate science at the local level is referred to the ‘last mile’ challenge for climate change evidence to become actions in support of climate change adaptation. Knowledge is recognised as an important determinant and indicator of adaptive capacity (Williams et al, 2015), whereas wisdom refers to actions taken to enhance sustainability of human activities (Rowley, 2006) Is such a hierarchy useful for improving the usability of information for local climate adaptation science? The argument for the increasingly higher resolution and costly production of downscaled climate change data (as model simulations and projections) cannot be rationalised in the absence of the elements of the information hierarchy that acknowledge the importance of the energy and predictability required to reduce. This conception, depicting a hierarchical parity or co-equality is described

Hierarchical parity

Access to data

Governance of knowledge

Politics of wisdom

The ‘last mile’ for data provision and local adaptation?

Conclusions