The European Commission's Joint Research Centre is organising a workshop on Indicators and data for Climate resilient Development: from data to information and knowledge to policy actions. The final objective of this workshop is the identification of a core set indicators and data sets with a global coverage for the key determinants of climate resilient development (natural hazards related to climate change, vulnerability, adaptive capacity, mitigation, resilience, and development) to guide policy actions in this area. It will offer the opportunity of knowledge sharing between experts, scientists and practitioners, thereby establishing an open forum on climate resilient development which will be supported by a web knowledge platform. The workshop will be held in Brussels, March 25-26, 2015.
The key topics of discussion will be:
- Vulnerability to climate change, adaptive capacity, and resilience: definition and metrics
- Targets and indicators post 2015: synergies in metrics within the context of the international debate on the Sustainable Development goals 2015, the 21st Conference of the Parties UNFCCC , and the UN World Disaster Risk Reduction Conference;
- Development: i) Climate change and poverty reduction; ii) the role of Adaptive Capacity actions for the development of local communities;
- Natural hazards related to climate change. Building up new data sets on weather and climate extremes and slow onset events.
Agenda and background information will follow soon.
The number of participants to the workshop is limited. In case of interest to participate in the meeting, please send an email to: Climindicators [at] jrc.ec.europa.eu (Climindicators[at]jrc[dot]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu) to explore if space may still be available.
Background:
In 2007 the European Union (EU) established the Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA) to strengthen dialogue and cooperation on climate change issues. When it started in 2008, the Alliance was working in just four pilot countries. Today, it supports more than 50 programmes in 38 countries, 8 regions and sub-regions and at the global level. In 2014, a new phase of the GCCA, the GCCA+ Flagship Initiative began, in line with the European Commission’s new Multiannual Financial Framework (2014-2020). The GCCA+ continues to support those countries most vulnerable to climate change through two mutually reinforcing pillars: policy dialogue and implementation.
Many initiatives are in place or have been announced to support climate adaptation and resilience for the most vulnerable countries. Global efforts to set the world on a climate change resilient development pathway require understanding of the relationships between climate change and development as well as metrics for the identification of the countries, groups of people, and sectors most seriously threatened by climate change.