EEA Expert workshop on climate change adaptation platforms

(EEA,23 June 2014)

Draft Summary Report

This document provides a summary of the expert workshop on climate change adaptation platforms which took place in Copenhagen at EEA premises on 23 June 2014. The report is intended to complement the background information and the presentations that were given by participants.

Presentations, background information and all other documents related to this workshop are accessible at the following Eionet Forum Web site:

The agenda of the workshop and the participants list are also annexed to this document.

Participants to the meeting are kindly requested to consider this document and submit their comments to: André ,Kati Mattern > and Roger Street <> by 8 August 2014.

Objectives of the meeting

  • Exchanging experiences in developing and implementing climate change adaptation (CCA) platforms and links to the European Climate Change Adaptation Platform (Climate-ADAPT).
  • Exploring linkages of national CCA platforms with knowledge base systems on disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change services.
  • Presenting the ETC/CCA draft Technical Paper “Overview of climate change adaptation platforms/services in Europe” that will be updated based on the outcomes of the workshop.
  • Identifyingpossible relevant follow-up activities by EEA.

Participants

The meeting was targeted at member countries and other organisations which have developed or plan to develop a CCA platform. The meeting was organizedby EEA with support by its European Topic Centre on Climate Change impacts, vulnerability and Adaptation (ETC/CCA). The meeting was attended by 50 participants from: 24 EEA member countries, EEA, European Commission (DG CLIMA and DG AGRI), ETC/CCA, UN ISDR, WHO Regional Office for Europe,Pyrenees Climate Change Observatory (OPCC) and the consultancy Milieu (Brussels) carrying out the DG CLIMA project “Science Policy Forum”.

Summary

The EEA and UN ISDR provided an update on respective recent activities and plans in general and in relation to Climate-ADAPT and Prevention Web, respectively.The European Commission (DG CLIMA) presented the EU funding options for adaptation included in the (2013) Strategy on climate change adaptation and related documents. ETC/CCA presented an overview of the ETC/CCA draft Technical Paper “Overview of climate change adaptation platforms/services in Europe”.

Participants then discussed:funding of climate change adaptation platforms, links between platforms on climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction and climate services and links between national climate change adaptation platforms and Climate-ADAPT, including lessons learned, good practices and main challenges across countries.

Key actions/next steps

  • Actions for participants (by 8 August):

send EEA (André Jol) and ETC CCA (Roger Street) information on the contact person for the national adaptation platform

send EEA (André Jol) and ETC CCA (Roger Street) comments regardingcountry information contained in Annex 3 of the ETC/CCA Technical Paper;

sendto EEA (André Jol) comments on the summary of the Climate-ADAPT work plan.

  • Actions for EEA and ETC CCA:

Send an improved draft Technical Paper to NRCs on CC IVA (and other meeting participants) in autumn 2014 for consultation;

Prepare a proposal for aprocess to inform and involve NRCs on CC IVA on case studies development and implementation (autumn 2014);

Senda list of meetings/conferences/events of relevance for both CCA and DRR to the expert meeting participants (included in the minutes);

Considered another follow-up expert workshop in 2015, based on the lessons learnt from the earlier workshops and propose this to NRCs on CC IVA (and other meeting participants) in autumn 2014.

A summary of presentations, discussions and resulting key actions is provided below..

1

Minutes

Welcome and objectives of the workshop(André Jol, EEA)

The background and earlier two meetings held in 2013 were mentioned. Furthermore the objectives of the workshop were presented. In addition ongoing relevant initiativeswere highlighted, including: Copernicus Climate ChangeServices, ERA-NET on Climate Services (of which JPI Climate will be part), H2020 andUNISDR DRR activities.

EU funding for adaptation (Alfonso Gutierrez Teira, DG CLIMA)

By ensuring that adaptation is considerably covered by EU funds the Commission is implementing the Strategy. The EU funding channelsfor CCA are described in the (2013)EU Adaptation Strategy:

1. Climate Action under the LIFE instrument;

2. H2020; DG CLIMA is trying to influence the programming of the 2016-2017 H2020 planning (focus on interfaces - information providers vs adaptation actors);

3. (most important in term of budget) mainstreaming CCA in the EU budget (related to EU Policies and Europe 2020).

The various mechanisms and procedures for the funding options were presented in detail. Some of these options can be used to also develop CCA information systems e.g. at national level, provided these are part of a project with wider aims.The European Commission developed factsheets providing guidance on the potential for each fund to finance CCA. These factsheets are accessible via the new Climate-ADAPT pages on EU funding.

The EU dedicates a large amount of resources to climate action (both mitigation and adaptation) and it is therefore important for the Commission to monitor that climate action is truly reflected in plans for the use of the EU funds that countries receive (e. g. LIFE+ for climate action). The monitoring of the expenditure in the Member States to adaptation is a based on the same approach as used for other purposes (e.g. international climate funds) and will be a step-by-step approach making use of lessons learned.

Due to the specific needs of cities urban adaptation is a priority theme for 2014.

Results of Adaptation “Flagship projects” will be presented in Climate-ADAPT to ensure the dissemination of the knowledge. Results of LIFE-projects assessed as being “best practices” can be presented in Climate-ADAPT as case studies.

It was highlighted that the Commission values Climate-ADAPT as one key element of the EU Adaptation Strategy. As such it has to be further developed due to the needs of its stakeholders and maintained at reasonable costs.DG CLIMA has provided new pages on CLIMATE-ADAPT (which will soon be made live) to present the EU Adaptation Strategy and the adaption related EU funds.

Ensuring continuity of funding for the sustainability of (a network of) CCA platforms is recognized as crucial.

Presentation of the Overview Paper on climate change adaptation platforms(Roger Street, UKCIP)

An overview of the ETC/CCA draft Technical Paper (TP) “Overview of climate change adaptation platforms/services in Europe” was presented, including: background; scope and purpose; definitions; state of play in countries (annex 3); challenges and lessons learned.

The TP and the Workshop aim at promoting a better understandingthrough sharing information, experiences, challenges, good practices and lessons learned.The paper can be used to inform the ongoing discussions on the further development of adaptation platforms in relation to climate services and disaster risk reduction platforms. The analysis in the paper is still preliminary. It will be improved, in particular regarding the presented examples.It was highlighted that for this purpose feedback on the country related information in the paper (Annex 3) and on key contact persons for clarifications are needed.

PreventionWeb Re-designed: Knowledge Management of Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change (Craig Duncan, Senior Coordinator Information Management Unit, UN ISDR)

PreventionWeb (PW), launched in 2006 is a DRR platform at global level while there are other platforms at European and national levels available. Beside PW other global platforms are not well funded.

Overview of PreventionWeb (PW):

  • content - PWpresents the DRR available knowledge which was mapped (collected and organised in a structured way),the main areas being risks and hazards, countries and cities;
  • metricsand use - PW has a high fidelity rate (people re-visit the website because they find it useful) and is explicitly listed as major online source of DRR information (30% of which is tagged as “climate change”);
  • evaluation findings - moving beyond the concept of information repository (virtual library) towardsinformation brokering (participatory platform);
  • transformational ambitions:movingfrom library to a participatory platform, from participation to open social, from publications-centric to conversation-centric; from English to local languages; from long lists to discoverability.

Linking CCA and DRR communities:

  • information and knowledge management (IK/IM) should havecommon language (harmonized terminology and taxonomy, or mapped differences), defined standards andreduced duplication;
  • Climate Knowledge Brokers (CKB) (connected to the development cooperation institutions) and Information and Knowledge Management for Disaster Risk Reduction (IKM4DRR) communities should start talking to each other and working together;
  • donors should create incentives for collaboration;
  • data and content should be syndicated, not simply copied.
  • The presentation of risk assessment and management and the methods to stronger involve the private sector could be priority areas where a stronger collaboration between DRR and Adaptation platforms could be established.

UN ISDRnew framework (HFA2) will be discussed next year (14-18 March 2015 World Conference to adopt post-2015 Framework for DRR) whose elements are: risk prevention, risk reduction and strengthening resilience.

Update on the development of Climate-ADAPT and outlook (workplan 2014 to 2018) (Kati Mattern, EEA)

The main progress in 2013-2014 by DG CLIMA/EEAwas presented, includingupdated and improved tools (adaptation support tool, case studies search tool) and software functionalities(DB search function and submission forms);updated and improved content (EU adaptation policy pages, country information, transnational pages (e.g. Baltic Sea Region);case studies presentation); the improvement of the database QA/QC procedure and dissemination activities (with the DG CLIMA funded project “Science-Policy Forum”with 8 Workshops involving 12 countries).

A detailed 2013-2018 Climate-ADAPT Work Planhas jointly been developed by DG CLIMA and EEA reflecting the role of Climate-ADAPT in the EU Adaptation Strategy. The work plan is still under consultation with JRC. The summary of the work plan distributed prior to the workshop sets the annual content and functionality development priorities as a balance between policy makersneeds, the adaptation information and knowledge available and the given resources for maintenance and development.For example, enhancing cities information is a key priority in 2015.This comprises including information from the “Mayors Adapt”initiative and developing new functionalities to facilitate searching cities information and to access city specific tools.Another example is the improved presentation of climate data via a JRC based time series tool (2014).

Climate-ADAPT will also include a table listing all the links to CCA national platforms.

Regarding evaluation of use and possible improvements Google statistics are used. EEA is also taking into account the specific feedback from participants and users that attended a wide range of workshops in various countries (held during 2013/2014) at which Climate-ADAPT was presented. EEA will assess feedback from additional workshops, in particular the Science-Policy Forums being held in 2014. Furthermore EEA is also considering options for receiving further feedback by individual users, e.g. through a further feedback form at the Climate-ADAPT platform.

Climate changeadaptation platforms, disaster risk reduction and climate services, and links to Climate-ADAPT (Group discussions)

Breakout Group 1: Funding climate change adaptation platforms (Chair: Sabine McCallum (UBA Austria); Rapporteur: Roger Street (UKCIP))

The following points summarize the main outcomes of the discussion.

Funding considerations:

  • differences between having a website and having a platform;
  • provision of information versus participatory platforms supporting long-term processes (e.g., policy and decisions);
  • consequences for funding;different funding in terms of amounts and types

fundingis not the only sustainability factor for a platform; it is essential at the beginning, but in the longer-term the engagement of people is more important than the funding (Belgium)

Funding Models/Tracks

Three (including EU) funding models/tracks were identified: 1. Research/project driven; 2. policy support; 3. policy mandated, as summarized in the following table. Policy-based (PB) provides short-term (ST) funding. Policy-mandated provides a longer-term (LT) perspective, but funding could be short-term. Existing CCA platforms are either research/project driven orsupport national adaptation policy.

Research/Project Driven / Policy support / Policy mandated
Proof of concept (PB/ST)
- could be research driven / Building of policy support
Policy support (PB/ST) / Proof of concept (ST or LT) / Platform developed (LT)
Policy mandate (LT) / Policy mandate (LT)
Platform (actually only here) / Platform (actually only here)

Breakout Group 2: Links between platforms on climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction and climate services (Chair: ÅsaSjöstrom (SMHI); Rapporteur: Sergio Castellari (CMCC))

The following points summarize the main outcomes of the discussion.

  • Climate services (CS), adaptation services (AS) and DRR should not be grouped together under the same umbrella. But, there are important links that we should enhance.
  • While for CS there are already some market based activities (businesses)in place, this is a new development in AS.
  • CSinformAS and DRR services, but also have other purposes (e.g. monitoring global temperature, to inform global mitigation policy). AS operate with longer timeframes than DRR, which typically focus on the effects of the present climate (with some exceptions). It would be beneficial forDRR to also include longer timeframes, as this could improve planning and effective action.
  • Many of theactionsare similar or eventhe same (e.g. warning systems and risk analysisareperformed in the same or similar way for adaptation and DRR). Further synergies should be exploited and duplication avoided.
  • Coherent messages are very important. It is confusing for the users (and damaging for the credibility) if there are three different websites with different messages about the same issues.
  • Experiences from participating countries showed that there are some issues with bringing the three topics together. But there are also many ongoing efforts to improve collaboration (e. g. integrated portals including CS and AS or successfully finding synergies (FI)).
  • In some cases CS are already used to improve planning of DRR actions
  • Regarding governance there are in several countries collaboration problems betweengovernment departments or across national borders.
  • There is often an unclear division of responsibilities, possibly because adaptation is a relatively new topic. Adaptation is usually mainstreamed, which can mean that everybody is regarded as responsible; while in effect, nobody takesresponsibility.
  • Suggestions identified for ways to improve collaboration:

focusing on specific topics (e.g. health) and organising meetings withstakeholders from CS, AS and DRR together can help fosteringconcrete collaboration.

Dialogue is very important to understand data needs of users. AS and DRR (should) build on CS, but it is important to produce the right information, in the proper format, and to communicate it in a way to make it useful for the adaptation or DRR community.

Learning from past disasters can be a useful way to improve collaboration, e.g.organising meetings with all stakeholders to discuss which actions were effective and which not and how collaborative activitiescould be improved

Events on CCA & DRR

  • Public consultation of the UNISDR “Post-2015 Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction: a proposal for monitoring progress” to be debated at the World Conference Prepcom on July 14; see the draft at:
  • Climate Knowledge broker Workshop October 4th – October 5th 2014; Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, Brighton, UK (report from the last workshop at
  • 5th Annual meeting of the European Forum for Disaster Risk Reduction (EFDRR), 06-08 Oct 2014 (tentative), Spain (Madrid),
  • 14-18 March 2015 - Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan.
  • 12-14 May 2015 - European Climate Change Adaptation Conference (Copenhagen, Denmark).Topic proposals welcome by 1 Oct. 2014. Includes an exhibitionon technological and other solutions for CCA.

Breakout Group 3: Links between national climate change adaptation platforms and Climate-ADAPT (Chair: Kati Mattern (EEA); Rapporteur: Silvia Medri (CMCC))

The following points summarize the main outcomes of the discussion.

How to work complementarily on cities:

  • national platforms should be the place where detailed cities information should be, but thereare benefits to also make aggregated cities information available through Climate-ADAPT;cities are also linked to international cities networks;
  • as Climate-ADAPT is going to be populated with further urban adaptation information within a specific section on cities, this information should make use of and refer to the original national source, preferably to specific documents/projects/initiatives (vs the portal homepage);
  • language is an issue for the presentation of information:Climate-ADAPT provides information in English and links to (external) national pages (in national languageand withresponsibility of the countries); one transnational portal (for alpine space) translates into English title, abstract and keywordsand provides links to original source (internal) in their DB (provided that it’s public information); national platforms are mainly in national languages, some of them have an English version that generally covers just the main pages (not all for budget limitations);
  • technically, a “web catalogue service” could be included in Climate-ADAPT to allow better and easier linking and sharing of metadata with databases in national platforms;
  • currently the new case studies presented at Climate-ADAPT are being extracted mainly from EU projects; for case studiesdevelopment and implementation (that require identifying and consulting (local) adaptation practitioners) it is proposed thatthe EEA establishes a formal process throughEionetto avoid duplication of efforts and to ensurethat countries are informed of the inclusion of a case within their country (it was noted that one country discovered on Climate-ADAPT a national case study they were not aware of);this process can e.g. include the possibility that a country can comment on the selection of the case and a possibility to propose cases
  • there’s a wish from users to have the information collected and customized for specific users groups (e.g. city planners) at national level, but not so at the European Level, that should provide a broad knowledge and fill national knowledge gaps;

How to get users feedback and evaluate the platform: