Communicating About Climate Change with Urban Populations and Decision-Makers

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Chu ◽  
Todd Schenk
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Scientific Uncertainty ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Urban Populations ◽  
Communication Processes ◽  
Concrete Action

Cities are important venues for climate change communication, where global rhetoric, national directives, local priorities, and media discourses interact to advance mitigation, adaptation, and resilience outcomes on the ground. Urban decision makers are often directly accountable to their electorates, responsible for the tasks most relevant to advancing concrete action on climate change, and flexible in pursuing various public engagement programs. However, many cities are designing climate policies without robust downscaled climate projections or clear capacity and support mechanisms. They are often constrained by fragmented governance arrangements, limited resources, and jurisdictional boundaries. Furthermore, policies often fall short in responding to the disparate needs of heterogeneous urban populations. Despite these constraints, cities across the global North and South are innovating with various communication tools to facilitate public awareness, political engagement, context-specific understanding, and action around climate change. These tools range from traditional popular media to innovative participatory processes that acknowledge the interests of different stakeholders, facilitate engagement across institutional boundaries, and address persistent scientific uncertainty through information coproduction and knowledge reflexivity. By selectively employing these tools, local governments and their partners are able to translate climate science into actionable mitigation, adaptation, and resilience plans; prioritize decision making while taking into account the multiscaled nature of urban infrastructures and service provisions; and design adaptable and flexible communication processes that are socially equitable and inclusive over the long term.

scholarly journals Climate Change, Uncertainty and Policy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeroen Hopster
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Deep Uncertainty ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Moral Uncertainty ◽  
Climate Economics ◽  
Climate Change Uncertainty ◽  
Management Perspective ◽  
Climate Uncertainty

While the foundations of climate science and ethics are well established, fine-grained climate predictions, as well as policy-decisions, are beset with uncertainties. This chapter maps climate uncertainties and classifies them as to their ground, extent and location. A typology of uncertainty is presented, centered along the axes of scientific and moral uncertainty. This typology is illustrated with paradigmatic examples of uncertainty in climate science, climate ethics and climate economics. Subsequently, the chapter discusses the IPCC’s preferred way of representing uncertainties and evaluates its strengths and weaknesses from a risk management perspective. Three general strategies for decision-makers to cope with climate uncertainty are outlined, the usefulness of which largely depends on whether or not decision-makers find themselves in a context of deep uncertainty. The chapter concludes by offering two recommendations to ease the work of policymakers, faced with the various uncertainties engrained in climate discourse.

scholarly journals Telling the boiling frog what he needs to know: why climate change risks should be plotted as probability over time

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Sharpe
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
First Principles ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Climate Change Risks ◽  
Science Community ◽  
Over Time

Abstract. Humanity's situation with respect to climate change is sometimes compared to that of a frog in a slowly boiling pot of water, meaning that change will happen too gradually for us to appreciate the likelihood of catastrophe and act before it is too late. I argue that the scientific community is not yet telling the boiling frog what he needs to know. I use a review of the figures included in two reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to show that much of the climate science communicated to policymakers is presented in the form of projections of what is most likely to occur, as a function of time (equivalent to the following statement: in 5 min time, the water you are sitting in will be 2 ∘C warmer). I argue from first principles that a more appropriate means of assessing and communicating the risks of climate change would be to produce assessments of the likelihood of crossing non-arbitrary thresholds of impact, as a function of time (equivalent to the following statement: the probability of you being boiled to death will be 1 % in 5 min time, rising to 100 % in 20 min time if you do not jump out of the pot). This would be consistent with approaches to risk assessment in fields such as insurance, engineering, and health and safety. Importantly, it would ensure that decision makers are informed of the biggest risks and hence of the strongest reasons to act. I suggest ways in which the science community could contribute to promoting this approach, taking into account its inherent need for cross-disciplinary research and for engagement with decision makers before the research is conducted instead of afterwards.

scholarly journals Constructing an illusion of scientific uncertainty? Framing climate change in German and British print media

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Schmid-Petri ◽  
Dorothee Arlt
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Analysis Data ◽  
Scientific Uncertainty ◽  
Press Coverage ◽  
Quantitative Content Analysis ◽  
Quantitative Content ◽  
The Press ◽  
British Press

AbstractThis article uses quantitative content analysis data from June 1, 2012 to May 31, 2013 to examine the salience and construction of scientific uncertainty about climate change in German and British press coverage using quantitative content analysis data from June 1, 2012 to May 31, 2013. The results show that uncertainty about climate change − against overwhelming consensus among climate scientists − is prominent in the press coverage of both countries. The findings indicate that it is important to distinguish whether scientific uncertainty can be found at the level of single articles, or at the level of the coverage as a whole. The study also reveals that uncertainty is constructed differently in German and British press coverage in terms of the media’s framing of climate science and the types of actors who are involved in the construction of scientific uncertainty.

scholarly journals Decision-making through the grapevine: Winegrowers' perceptions on climate change and the barriers to adaptation planning in New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Alyssa Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Wine Industry ◽  
Adaptation Planning ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Wine Production ◽  
Climate Change Research

<p>New Zealand wine is cultivated in cool climates that produce distinctive flavours and wine-styles, which are representative of the terroir of the region. The effects of climate change can impact the quality and quantity of winegrapes, and the production of premium wine. The aim of this research was to investigate adaptation planning in the New Zealand wine industry by evaluating winegrowers’ decision-making and perceptions of climate change. Research was conducted using primary survey data from New Zealand winegrowers and semi-structured interviews with winegrowers from three case study regions of Marlborough, Central Otago, and Hawke’s Bay. The study was designed to assess how climate change is understood throughout the industry, whether adaptation plans are being developed or employed and the barriers hindering winegrowers’ implementation of adaptation strategies. The results show that winegrowers are somewhat informed about climate change with some adaptation planning occurring. However, the majority of winegrowers have no plans to adapt to climate change. The uncertainty in the climate science and the availability of information were indicated as a barrier to adaptation planning. Winegrowers convey the need for regional information with a focus on reliable forecasting and climate projections for the next few years. The New Zealand wine industry is in a positive position to undertake adaptation with the opportunity to exploit the benefits of climate change for wine production.</p>

Making Uncertainties Explicit

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Frank
Keyword(s):  
Climate Modeling ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Scientific Uncertainty ◽  
Value Judgments ◽  
Explicit Representations ◽  
Value Free Ideal ◽  
Is Value

According to Richard Jeffrey’s value-free ideal, scientists should avoid making value judgments about inductive risks by offering explicit representations of scientific uncertainty to decision-makers, who can use these to make decisions according to their own values. Some philosophers have responded by arguing that higher-order inductive risks arise in the process of producing representations of uncertainty. This chapter explores this line of argument and its limits, arguing that the Jeffreyan value-free ideal is achievable in contexts where methodological decisions introduce minimal higher-order uncertainty and where communications of uncertainty are unlikely to be manipulated or misunderstood by scientists or decision-makers. This chapter illustrates the limits of the Jeffreyan ideal with reference to climate science and argues that the context of climate science is not conducive to the Jeffreyan ideal, so the argument that climate modeling is value-laden due to higher-order inductive risks withstands recent criticisms.

Livestock's Near-Term Climate Impact and Mitigation Policy Implications

2018 ◽  
pp. 37-57
Author(s):  
Gerard Wedderburn-Bisshop ◽  
Lauren Rickards
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Climate Impact ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Human Consumption ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Climate Change Responses ◽  
Methane Source ◽  
Near Term

Human consumption of livestock remains a marginal issue in climate change debates, partly due to the IPCC's arbitrary adoption of 100-year global warming potential framework to compare different emissions, blinding us to the significance of shorter-term emissions, namely methane. Together with the gas it reacts to form - tropospheric ozone - methane has been responsible for 37% of global warming since 1750, yet its atmospheric life is just 10 years. Neglecting its role means overlooking powerful mitigation opportunities. The chapter discusses the role of livestock, the largest anthropogenic methane source, and the need to include reduced meat consumption in climate change responses. Looking beyond the conventional focus on the consumer, we point to some underlying challenges in addressing the meat-climate relationship, including the climate science community's reluctance to adopt a short-term focus in its climate projections. Policy options are presented.

Retooling climate science for risk assessment

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Sanderson ◽  
Saloua Peatier ◽  
Laurent Terray
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Climate Feedbacks ◽  
Climate Assessment ◽  
Global Issue ◽  
Ipcc Report ◽  
Tail Behaviour ◽  
Future Work

&lt;p&gt;Over recent years, climate change has become a global issue, leading political agendas and projecting onto almost every economic and development decision made today.&amp;#160; However, the way that we conduct climate science has remained broadly unchanged since the publication of the first IPCC report in 1990 - still relying on an ensemble of opportunity of climate models which doesn't allow for an estimation of high-impact tail risks and a highly idealized scenario framework which fails to test the fundamental technological assumptions which underpin our remaining pathways for achieving the Paris Agreement.&amp;#160; Here, we discuss how our strategy within the Make Our Planet Great Again &quot;RISCCi&quot; project is attempting to reframe the simulation of climate projections such as to provide better guidance for robust decision-making by categorizing the deep uncertainties of climate projections and mitigation pathways.&amp;#160; We present the initial results from an CNRM ensemble project which seeks to explore tail behaviour in climate feedbacks and impacts, and outline in a wider sense how future work and climate assessment needs to respond to the growing and evolving needs of a society as it works to minimise, and adapt to, climate change.&lt;/p&gt;

Governance of City Resilience

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 70-93
Author(s):  
Graham Colclough ◽  
Andoni González-Gómez ◽  
Marc Velasco ◽  
John Stevens ◽  
Patrick Goodey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Common Language ◽  
Urban Populations ◽  
City Hall ◽  
Climate Change Risks ◽  
Important Means ◽  
Substantial Change

Cities face a growing set of complex interdependent challenges. Increasing urban populations, ageing infrastructure, and uncertainties regarding the scale and manifestation of variety of contemporary challenges all highlight the increasing pressures facing decision makers to make substantial change. The influence of City Hall to convene, engage and involve, guide and steer, provide or liberate resources, demonstrate, and decide are all important means by which a city can accelerate and strengthen how it mitigates risks and rebounds from adverse situations better. This paper explores the experiences of cities involved in the RESCCUE project—Bristol, Barcelona, and Lisbon—in addressing climate change risks within pre-existing governance frameworks. The principal conclusion is that there is an absence of a common language and organising framework to strengthen the governance of city resilience, and to that end, the authors offer an emerging framework.

Thermal Assessment Tool: A climate service to visualize trends of risk events related to cold snaps and heatwaves

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Blas Lajarín ◽  
Nieves Peña ◽  
Jorge Paz ◽  
Edward P. Morris ◽  
Greta C. Vega ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Data Analysis ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Extreme Weather Events ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Seasonal Forecasts

&lt;p&gt;The Thermal Assessment Tool has been developed within the framework of a&amp;#160;Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S)&amp;#160;contract, titled Climate Change Dashboards for Decision Makers, to provide an interactive and informative dashboard to allow users to visualize the frequency and severity of risk events related to cold snaps and heatwaves. The tool is based on historical, seasonal forecast and long-term projections datasets, available through C3S Climate Data Store (CDS). It reduces the need for repetitive complex climate data analysis, thereby saving time and effort in the decision-making process.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Climate change has already impacted ecosystems and humans, and it is foreseeing that will lead to an increase in the number and intensity of extreme weather events, including heatwaves and cold snaps. These may bring temperatures that are significantly warmer or colder than average that may cause impacts such as thermal discomfort, lack of productivity, more energy consumption and/or health problems. To reduce or at least mitigate these impacts added-value information regarding the risks of extreme temperatures is needed to make proper decisions to prepare, protect and prevent the city and citizens.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For this purpose, the Thermal Assessment Tool provides a customized dashboard that allows users to visualize heatwaves, cold snaps and thermal comfort based on long-term projections and seasonal forecasts. The tool also presents an interactive map and a time series visualization identifying the magnitude of these three variables. This reduces the need for repetitive complex climate data analysis, thereby saving time and effort in the decision-making processes. Information on the frequency and severity of future extreme temperature events can also assist with planning.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The tool showcases how to analyze, process and simplify large volumes of data through different maps and plots that make it easier to understand climate indicators (about the past, present or future). Local governments and other decision-makers, as well as actors in housing development and management, urban planning, and insurance can refer to the tool to complement their usual information systems with additional quality-assured insights that they can act on.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Acknowledgments: We would like to thank the C3S for funding this project and the participants in the various workshops mentioned below: Ayuntamiento de Bilbao, Ihobe y la Oficina Espa&amp;#241;ola de Cambio Clim&amp;#225;tico.&lt;/p&gt;

From climate projections to climate change services in Australia – retrospective and future directions

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Clarke ◽  
Karl Braganza ◽  
Geoff Gooley ◽  
Michael Grose ◽  
Louise Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Risk Management ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Government Investment ◽  
Help Desk ◽  
The North ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

&lt;p&gt;Australia is the World&amp;#8217;s driest inhabited continent. It is highly exposed to the impacts of climate change: surrounded by sensitive marine ecosystems including the Great Barrier Reef, vulnerable to tropical cyclones and changing monsoonal patterns in the north, experiencing declining rainfall and runoff in the heavily populated southern and eastern parts of the country, and subject to increasingly severe bushfires. The ever-present flood, drought and bushfire cycles have historically motivated government investment in programs that aim to understand the nation&amp;#8217;s climate and its drivers, and to inform adaptation planning and disaster risk management.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Accordingly, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) have been at the forefront of understanding Australia&amp;#8217;s past and future climate for four decades.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The most recent national climate projections were published in 2015. These focussed on the needs of the natural resource management sector and represented a first step towards delivery of climate change services tailored to the sector&amp;#8217;s needs. Products included decision support tools and provision of training for capacity building. A key component of the research program was stakeholder engagement from inception. The resultant Climate Change in Australia website (www.climatechangeinaustralia.gov.au) and Help Desk represented the most ambitious steps to date towards a comprehensive Australian climate change service, and were a first attempt at user-driven information delivery.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Now five years on, users' needs have evolved substantially. Key drivers of this include: (1) the Paris Agreement (2015) to limit global temperature rise to below 2.0&amp;#176;C (ideally below 1.5&amp;#176;C) above pre-industrial levels, (2) implications of the Taskforce for Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD, 2017), and (3) IPCC Special Reports. This has occurred on top of a trend towards increasingly sophisticated uses of climate projections datasets for decision-making. Existing products do not meet all user needs. There is a pronounced &amp;#8216;pull&amp;#8217; from users of climate projections for sector-specific &quot;decision-relevant&quot; information for risk-management decisions. The cross-jurisdictional impacts of climate change have also resulted in a need for authoritative, standardized and quality-assured climate scenarios for the entire country, to facilitate whole of sector, cross-agency and multi-sector responses and adaptation. As Lourenco et al (2016) said, climate change services for Australia need to shift from &amp;#8220;science-driven and user informed services to user-driven and science informed services.&amp;#8221;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is increased emphasis on sector-specific tools that aim to provide decision-relevant information and underpinning datasets. An ongoing challenge is the need to enable the uptake of climate information in decision-making. This necessitates a skill uplift on the user side. To date, efforts have focused on the water, finance, energy, and indigenous land management sectors. Increasingly, the focus within Australia is on working together across jurisdictional boundaries to provide nationally consistent information; with enhanced transparency drawing upon climate science resources within universities and all levels of government. Strong partnerships with the private sector are also needed in order to deliver to burgeoning demand. Success will require genuine co-design, co-production and co-evaluation of sector-specific products with a suite of support services appropriate to the needs of diverse users.&lt;/p&gt;

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