The Climate Services Partnership:Creating Resources for Climate Services Development

Worldwide

Stephen E. Zebiak

International Research Institute for Climate and SocietyEarth Institute at Columbia University

2

Informal, interdisciplinary partnership (200+) working to improve climate services development and provision

Focused on creating knowledge/information resources, fostering collaborations to establish and improve on good practices

Created in 2011 at first International Conference on Climate Services (ICCS1)

Organization: Coordinating Group International office

The Climate Services Partnership

Participation in CSP/ICCS process

Knowledge Capture and Exchange:Interactive database of current climate services activities– what, where– theme/sector, institutions– business model, governance, …

Case studies (joint with GFCS):– basic information– experiences, lessons learned, opportunities for improvement (40+ identified)

Assessments:– facilitated, independent analysis; address costs/benefits; gaps; opportunities– Mali agromet program, India agricultural climate services first subjects

Case Studies

All regions (most in Africa)Subnational to regional; 2 globalWeather to climate change timescales (most seasonal to interannual)

Capacity gaps

Challenges in communicating informationChallenges in link between users and providersLack of capacity on part of providerFundingData

Case study analysis: Four lessons

• Human capacity is key and requires continuous investment

• Bridging & tailoring takes time • Working with existing infrastructure can be

extremely effective• Climate services should be part of a larger risk

management strategy

Some other CSP activities

• Evaluation – phase II– new methodology (modest investment), ~10 studies planned

• Economic valuation of climate services– Literature review, guidance document (book)

• Review of climate services guidance/training material• Climate service mapping activity (with EU/JPI-Climate, CSC)• CSP Knowledge Exchange (webinars/e-discussion forum)• Scaling up climate services for farmers in Africa and S. Asia

(with CCAFS)

ICCS3: Montego Bay, Jamaica!December 4-6, 2013

Ideas:• Drought and related climate services• Coastal management/adaptation

– Coral reefs

• Insurance and climate risk management

• Health and climate – dengue, ..• Climate services ethics• Prioritizing research for supporting

climate services• CSP activities and results• Side events, training sessions, etc.

ICCS 2 – Brussels, Sept 2012

Get Involved!

http://www.climate-services.org

Four lessons about process

• User perspective is difficult to capture• Hard to define success• Have to create an environment in which

people are comfortable talking about their failures

• Institutional analysis is lacking