Putting Climate Services in action for adaptation: ECCA2017

Image: Session in ECCA2017. Photo by Francesca Larosa.

The European Conference on Climate Change Adaptation (ECCA) took place in Glasgow this year reaching its third edition and self-confirmed as one of the top events in Europe. The aim of the conference was to present the work that has been done across Europe on adaptation and to stimulate the debate, proposing new solutions, steps ahead and engaging the relevant stakeholders. The event reached out practitioners, policy-makers, decision takers and academics and represents perhaps the most relevant venue to discuss about adaptation in Europe. A specific set of sessions was dedicated to climate services. Among them, on Wednesday, June the 7th, EU-MACS, MARCO and SECTEUR, in collaboration with PLACARD, jointly organised a session named “Providing a fit-for-purpose climate service for Europe: users’ and purveyors perspectives”. The session was co-chaired by Maria Noguer (SECTEUR coordinator) and Francesca Larosa (CMCC). Approximately fifty people, working and engaging in various sectors, attended the session.

The session started with a talk from two key guests: Roger Street (UKCIP) and Carlo Buontempo (ECMWF), who presented the state of the art of climate services in Europe and introduced the Roadmap for Climate Services and Copernicus Climate Change Services. The session was managed using an interactive format to give participants the opportunity to share their experiences: attendees were asked to provide inputs according to their sectoral experience. In particular, the session explored the marketability and the user requirements of six sectoral services: Agriculture & Forestry, Coastal areas, Health, Infrastructure, Insurance and Tourism. Participants also highlighted the main barriers in developing and using climate services. Inputs were fully incorporated in Deliverable 1.2 of the EU-MACS project.

The session fostered cooperation between the three projects and allowed the creation of new synergies. Being near completion SECTEUR was able to share results of the work done to date and to present the main characteristics of users benefitting of climate services.

Otherwise EU-MACS was also represented through several posters, as part of a large and well-structured display of posters.

Finally, ECCA2017 introduced a novelty in the structure of the event: the Business day and the Innovation day, that were run in parallel to the conferences sessions. Start-up representatives, large corporations, firms and companies provide interesting insights on their requirements and use of climate information. Their point of view is crucial to design tailor-made products and services, stimulating the market and creating new windows of opportunities.

Francesca Larosa, Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici (CMCC), Venice, Italy