It has been a long way from the UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm (1972) to today: In the last decades the first World Climate Conference took place (1979); The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was set up (1988); The Earth Summit in Rio (1992) called for sustainable development and stablished the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change; The first Conference of the Parties (COP1) started in Berlin (1995); The Kyoto Protocol was formally passed at COP3 (1997) and entered into force (2005); Non-binding emissions reductions and mitigation actions pledges were submitted by participating countries at COP15 after the Copenhagen summit (2009); The Paris Agreement was adopted by the COP21 (2015); And the USA withdrew from this accord (2017). Although climate change denialists have lost media attention and climate science has entered into popular consciousness a gap remains between society, science and politics. Despite the attempts to connect these communities through a broad range of efforts public engagement with climate-related science and environment is still needed. The Third World Climate Conference (2009) called for a Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS), namely “information in a way that assists decision making by individuals and organizations”, in order to transform useful information in usable data. Beyond climate change information there is a turn for climate services communication. Communication plays a key role in this transformation process when embed in the core of climate-related research, such as the INDECIS project does. The Integrated approach for the development across Europe of user oriented climate indicators for GFCS high-priority sectors: Agriculture, disaster risk reduction, energy, health, water and tourism (www.indecis.eu) constitutes a pan-European effort for the routinely production of climate indices and their conversion into climate services by engaging the stakeholders in their definition and communication. INDECIS aims: i) to develop historical high quality, dense climate networks across Europe based on long-perspective time series of different meteorological variables based on in situ measurements from which accurate and robust climate indices can be calculated and ii) generate a set of sector oriented indices and climate services to better understand the effects of climate change and variability over societies and cope with their impacts. Trough communication, INDECIS will transform climate change-related data into customized products ―trends, projections, advice on best practices and climate-related services― usable for stakeholders to assess the effects of climate variability, extreme events and climate change over socioeconomic systems and its sustainability from the Mediterranean to the Arctic. A mix of both quantitative (inventory and catalogue of indices datasets, release of software for indices calculation, report on the reliability and uncertainties of forecasts) and qualitative (in-deep interviews, focus groups, workshops) methods are used for identifying potential customers in different sectors (public, private, social) and levels (local, national and international), and for defining their exact needs in terms of climate services communication. Since this is an ongoing research, preliminary results will be presented during the conference. Regarding the current media environment, communication should facilitate the comprehension of research by non-specialists and promote a two-way exchange and engagement between scientists, policy-makers, stakeholders and the whole public. Climate services could do so, because they involve iterative dialogue, public participation and co-creation of knowledge in a communicative process, which favors environmental governance for tackling climate change in the Anthropocene.
Keywords: climate services, INDECIS, environmental communication
1c. Assessing sustainability (indicators and reporting)
