Workshop report: Report from the fourth meeting

Climate science humanitarian policy working group Co‐hosted by the UK Met Office Hadley Centre and Humanitarian Futures Programme, King’s College London Summary The fourth Climate Science Humanitarian Policy working group meeting took place on 18 July 2011 at the Hadley Centre in Exeter. The aims of the meeting were to review work undertaken by exchange partners in Senegal to develop climate information and methodologies which better support humanitarian decision making at national and community levels, and to prepare for further climate science‐humanitarian policy exchange demonstration work in Kenya and Senegal. Exchange work coordinated by the Senegalese Red Cross in June and July 2011 initiated a pilot early warning system amongst vulnerable communities in Kaffrine district. Activities undertaken include: a Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment, a Memorandum of Understanding between the Senegalese National Meteorological Agency (ANAMS) and the Red Cross – the first of its kind between a national meteorological office and a humanitarian agency and a workshop to support direct dialogue between scientists, humanitarian planners and community leaders and create a collaborative Early Warning‐Early Action system to manage risks through the remainder of the 2011 rainy season. Meeting participants discussed future exchange work in Senegal and Kenya, both in terms of the climate science research which could support these demonstration studies and the methodologies which can strengthen understanding and effective application of emerging scientific learning. Exchange activities to date have identified, piloted and developed a range of effective dialogue approaches including: probabilistic forecasting card games, participatory downscaling, timelines and early warning‐early action games. Attached to this report are the following materials: • Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment report • Memorandum of Understanding between the Senegalese Red Cross and the Senegalese National Meteorological Agency • Declaration from the Early Warning‐Early Action workshop, July 2011 • Timetable of proposed exchange activities 2011‐12 Presentations provided at the meeting are available on the HFP website (http://www.humanitarianfutures.org/about/futuresgroup/exchange). Introduction The fourth Climate Science Humanitarian Policy working group meeting took place at the Hadley Centre in Exeter and was co‐hosted by the Met Office Hadley Centre and Humanitarian Futures Programme. The aims of the meeting were to review work undertaken by exchange partners in Senegal to develop climate information and methodologies which better support humanitarian 1 decision making at national and community levels, and to prepare for further climate science‐
humanitarian policy exchange demonstration work in Kenya and Senegal. As an introduction to the meeting, partners outlined the framework for the 12‐month exchange demonstration studies, which aims to demonstrate how climate science can effectively inform a range of humanitarian, disaster risk reduction and development planning processes and is based on three stages. First, NGOs, local partners and Met Office/climate outlook representatives meet to discuss and define information needs, currently available climate information, and identify available communication channels and barriers to exchange. After an analysis of the existing situation, all or some of the actors suggest ways to improve climate information and its availability. New information and means of dissemination are then trialled and the resulting outcomes are reviewed in terms of further changes that need to be made. The demonstration study encompasses two pilots, one in Senegal and one in Kenya, involving a wide range of stakeholders but essentially located in specific communities. Exchange activities aim to gauge the level of climate science‐policy dialogue, strengthen access of humanitarian organizations and communities to climate science, and improve the understanding of scientists regarding community needs. The science‐policy dialogue approaches employed aim to help organizations and communities understand the uncertainties inherent in climate science, contextualize climate science in relation to other issues of vulnerability and drivers of crises and support appropriate application within specific decision‐making processes. Exchange work in Senegal in June/July 2011 The second session was a report back on the climate science‐humanitarian policy exchange work in Senegal. An overview of the local context and the workshops in Senegal was presented by Ibrahima Laye Thiome from the Senegal Red Cross/Croix‐Rouge Sénégalaise (CRS). Vulnerability and Capacity Assessments (VCA) were successfully carried out in 3 communities in Kaffrine district to develop an understanding of the vulnerabilities and climate needs of these communities. Traditional methods of climate prediction were explored within the VCA. A Memorandum of Understanding was drawn up between the Agence Nationale de Météorologie du Senegal (ANAMS) and CRS for the provision of climate information to support contingency planning and the establishment of an early warning system amongst vulnerable communities in Kaffrine for the period 2011‐12. An Early warning‐ Early action workshop was then held with climate scientists, scientists from other relevant disciplines and institutions, including water and ecological mapping, community members including from a community radio station, agricultural extension workers, humanitarian actors and national and local partners in order to increase dialogue between the various participants and improve local access to relevant climate information. The workshop employed various dialogue approaches, including: knowledge timelines, scientific modules and restitution of these by a range of community end users, a forecasting early warning‐early action game and a joint visit to one of the communities hosting this pilot initiative.1 At the end of the workshop, all stakeholders made commitments for supporting a pilot community‐based early warning‐early action system for improving the level and quality of access to climate information for local stakeholders. These commitments were embodied in a joint declaration, while all participants also received a certificate for workshop attendance. 1
Information on each of these dialogue approaches is available from HFP. 2 An evaluation based on a new round of VCAs is planned for September, with a technical meting in October, to follow up on the process and further develop this for further exchange activities to support planning for 2012 rainy season. The possibility of playing the EWEA game at longer timescales (seasonal and decadal)was raised. Preparing for future exchange work in Kenya and Senegal In conference call with ANAMS, it was highlighted that the current climate data for the Kaffrine region, Senegal, is low resolution and has insufficient information for down‐scaled forecasts. Currently only 40 km data is available, and it would be useful if the Met Office could help with high resolution data and/or hydrological models (resolution of 16 or 12k data would be more useful). Additional information on short‐term forecasts would also better support planning for potential flooding. Panel presentations and discussion Mike Edwards, CAFOD, chaired a panel discussion on supporting the development of climate information which can better inform national and community level decision making, with contributions from Ibrahima Laye Thiome , CRS, Richard Graham and Richard Jones, Met Office, and Andy Morse, Liverpool University. Opening this session, it was noted that a number of NGOs have decided what the impacts of Climate Change are without directly engaging with the science community. Such organizations are really good at response and the politics of climate change but have failed to appropriately incorporate science into their operations. Richard Graham discussed the priorities of climate information, based on the UK DFID/Met Office Climate Science Research Partnership consultation exercise with 9 national and regional meteorological centres in Africa. The types of information prioritised encompassed: monthly and seasonal predictions (this was most important time frame requested), predictions of temporal distribution, downscaling and extreme events, and annual predictions. Current data on monthly and seasonal predictions is not detailed enough and only offers three categories of above normal, normal and below. There has also been discussion of the possibility of creating a drought index prediction. Ibrahima Laye Thiome identified communication, information transfer, capacity building and governance as four main lessons/needs for effective exchange. He discussed how climate information is important both for humanitarian organizations and communities to prepare for disasters, as well as for those engaged in rain‐fed agriculture. However information is not easily accessible nor available in readily understandable formats. There is a need to both identify those communities impacted by weather and climate and identify and develop the most effective channels and formats for communication. Andy Morse identified access and availability of products as key issues in supporting the development of climate information which can better inform national and community‐level decision making. It would, for example, be useful if there was greater inter‐action between meteorological offices from the north and south and if met offices further developed sector‐specific web pages. There is also a need to strengthen policymakers’ capacities to understand climate information, and 3 produce information which is seamless, developed through a combination of the best available resources. The inclusion of narrative on climate products will also make it easier for non‐scientists to interpret the information encompassed within the images. There is equally a need to develop products tailored for specific sectors, such as for health or agriculture. It is also important to demonstrate to users the value of engaging with climate information. ‘Buy‐in’ can be engendered through verification, both through demonstrating case studies of effective use and back‐casts to show the validity of climate information. But there is also a need for climate scientists to be honest about the limitations of certainty within the information which they can provide, and to be open to receiving feedback from community end users to support the development of relevant climate products. While the meeting was focused on consideration of seasonal and short‐term forecasts, Richard Jones raised the need to also consider long term forecasts. There are significant funds proposed for climate change adaptation. Climate resilient development requires that deployment of these adaptation funds be appropriately informed by climate. As is evidenced by the unfolding situation in the Horn of Africa, climate is just one piece of the jigsaw. Action on climate change needs to be underpinned with climate information linked to observations, human activity, and modelling for long, mid and short term forecasts. Methodologies for supporting more effective application of climate information within national‐
and community‐level decision making As Chair, Dominic Kniveton, Sussex University, introduced this session by reflecting on learning from recent exchange work in Senegal. Discussion with communities at risk of flooding had made clear that the indigenous indicators which they employ are uncertain, probabilistic and site specific. These concepts, also inherent in ‘official’ climate science, are not new to the communities. Supporting more effective use of climate information within humanitarian and development decision making is not just a question of giving forecasts to communities. Rather it requires two‐way dialogue. Scientists need to incorporate local knowledge into scientific learning, and be on hand to explain what the process of climate science is and what the data means. Effective partnership also offers the opportunity to enable community partners to support the collection of meteorological data centres by giving local actors rain gauges. He described a range of science‐policy dialogue approaches/methodologies which the exchange has been identifying, piloting and developing, including knowledge timelines, participatory downscaling and probabilistic forecasting card games. In the final session, participants divided into groups to suggest science‐policy dialogue methodologies for: a) Increasing understanding of science and development needs; To deepen scientists’ understanding about the types of climate information required to appropriately inform humanitarian and development planning, scientists need to know what are the key decisions which need to be made and what are the principal concerns of the community. To support understanding of climate science amongst communities at risk of climate variability and change, one possibility is the development of ‘para climate scientists’ or ‘para meteorologists’ ‐ 4 intermediaries who have a good understanding of climate science and can act as extension workers, bringing this knowledge to at risk communities. There nevertheless remains a need to be careful about the impact and role of such intermediaries, ensure they are kept informed of emerging scientific learning and that they do not oversimplify or wrongly interpret information. While there is a recognised need to pool and share information through a common website, this will require a system of oversight and accreditation to ensure the quality of the science made available. Discussion highlighted the need to link exchange activities with existing weather and climate information outreach initiatives such as RANET 2 (RAdio and interNET)http://www.ranetproject.net/ and GEONETCast 3 http://www.eumetsat.int/Home/Main/DataAccess/EUMETCast/SP_20100519114624675?l=en, b) Providing information of value; The chain of communication between climate scientist, policy maker and application of the science is not straight forward, nor is it always clear how the data has been transformed during this process. Confidence in an effective communication chain is required as scientists risk loss of credibility if forecasts prove incorrect or are incorrectly understood. Climate information is probabilistic so we need a formulaic way of relaying probabilistic forecasts, for example, a colour‐coded system to grade or warn of risk. c) Measuring the effectiveness of the application of knowledge. The declaration of roles and responsibilities issued at the close of the recent Early Warning Early Action workshop in Senegal provides an important framework for measuring the impact of exchange activities across the range of concerned stakeholders. It was, however, noted that both scientists and users of climate information will be wary of relying on findings from short pilots. Discussion highlighted the need to identify and develop relevant indicators for measuring the impact of efforts to strengthen effective dialogue and reduce vulnerability amongst at risk community. One suggestion was the development of a module or meteorological toolkit (a climate‐specific VCA) for assessing climate knowledge before and after exchange activities. The importance of developing 2
RANET is a collaboration of national weather services, NGOs and local communities working to to make weather, water, and climate information available to rural and remote populations. It uses a wide range of technologies from community radio and wind‐up radios, mobile phone text alerts, internet and robust 2‐way ‘chatty beetle’ computer terminals linked by satellite broadcasting technology. 3
GEONETCast is a global network of satellite‐based data dissemination systems which provides environmental scientists in developing countries with daily access to large data sets, without the need for fast, reliable, broadband Internet connections. Receiving stations use commercial satellite TV dishes, a PC and dedicated software developed mainly by EUMETSAT. They are found at met offices, research institutes and universities across Africa, where local scientists use the data for forecasts, hazard warnings, environmental monitoring and management, vulnerability assessments and planning. 5 understanding of community climate narratives and knowledge bases both enables scientists to learn from local knowledge, and provide information in relevant ways. Forecasts could, for example, be communicated in terms of impact, rather than as climate events. Next steps A timetable of proposed exchange activities is annexed to this report. The next climate science humanitarian policy working group is taking place on 9 January 2012 at Reading University, co‐hosted by the National Centre for Atmospheric Science, the Walker Institute and HFP. For further information, please contact: [email protected] 6