A Europe-wide network of climate-related activities and organizations across Europe, a platform to link decision makers, business and public to the climate science community and climate service providers.

An introduction by Chris Hewitt, Met Office and Climateurope coordinator.

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Involving  the actors of climate-related activities and organizations

Climateurope will coordinate and support Europe’s knowledge base to help better manage climate-related risks and opportunities. The benefit of this will be to create greater social and economic value for a wide range of European actors. A key part of Climateurope is to actively manage a network made up of climate-related activities and organizations across Europe. Such a network did not exist and is becoming increasingly necessary to: (1) enhance the transfer of information between suppliers and users of climate information to improve the resilience of European society to climate change and mitigation of the risk of dangerous climate change; (2) improve coordination to increase efficiency, reduce fragmentation and create synergies with and between relevant activities.

 

Addressing diversified audiences

The audience for Climateurope includes climate science communities, funding bodies, climate service providers and users. The user communities include public sector, businesses, industry and society. There will be a range of communication and dissemination activities to welcome and involve everyone. Examples include the 3 Climateurope Festivals, stakeholder-oriented reports on the state-of-the-art in Earth-system modelling and climate services in Europe, and a regularly updated user-friendly website. We really welcome feedback on our engagement activities to ensure we create the best possible environment for networking and communication.

 

Linking science and society

Many decision makers, businesses and the general public are increasingly aware of the relevance of climate information to them, be it to manage risks or identify opportunities arising from climate-related hazards, from climate variability and climate change, or to increase their understanding of the climate system. Climate science is the basis for producing authoritative and actionable climate information. Climateurope, through its network and communication activities, will link these decision makers, business and public to the climate science community and climate service providers, i.e. it will link science and society. There is a growing list of decision makers who are successfully using climate science (and services developed from the science) to better inform their decisions and Climateurope gives us the platform to showcase such examples and inspire others.

 

A powerful, innovative opportunity

This network linking science and society provides a powerful opportunity to ensure developments of climate research and climate services are undertaken through engagement with beneficiaries of the research and services (i.e. the users). This will mean that such developments are driven by societal needs. In turn, society will benefit from better engagement and interaction with the science and the services. This two-way linking at such a large scale has not been done before.

 

Valencia, 5-7 April 2017, the first Climateurope Festival

The Climateurope Festival 2017 offers a varied 2 ½ day programme of discussions, lectures, networking and performances to explore the state-of-the-art of climate information, and its uses and value in decision-making at both the European and national levels. We are currently planning the Festival, and the Festival will enable discussions of the advantages and challenges that climate services face within 2 or 3 specific sectors, focusing on how to transform climate information through services for societal and commercial success. Scientists, climate service suppliers and users communities will come together to share their experience and knowledge. The Festival will create new networks, and engages existing networks, that support climate services at the European and national levels. As stated above, we hope to inspire others to engage, better linking science to society.