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Use: Local adaptation

The following indicator is under consideration for this pilot edition of the Barometer: To what extent is there evidence of diverse actors using climate or biodiversity data to create, expand, or refine mitigation or adaptation efforts?

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Show/hide supporting questions

Existence

  • Is there evidence of actors or entities using climate action data to support adaptation?
    • No evidence of actors or entities using this data for adaptation purposes.
    • There are isolated cases of actors or entities using this kind of data for adaptation purposes, though the source may not be open data.
    • There are a number of cases of actors or entities using this kind of open data for adaptation purposes.
    • There are widespread and regular cases of actors or entities using this kind of open data for adaptation purposes.

Elements

  • The national government regularly uses this data for adaptation purposes. (No, Partially, Yes)

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially or Yes: Please briefly explain and provide one or more examples of the most significant uses you're aware of.

    If Partially or Yes: Is there evidence that these uses have focused on adaptation for communities or regions identified as specifically vulnerable?

    If Partially or Yes: Would you characterize these uses as predominantly incremental or transformational?

  • Sub-national governments regularly use this data for adaptation purposes. (No, Partially, Yes)

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially or Yes: Please briefly explain and provide one or more examples of the most significant uses you're aware of.

    If Partially or Yes: Is there evidence that these uses have focused on adaptation for communities or regions identified as specifically vulnerable?

    If Partially or Yes: Would you characterize these uses as predominantly incremental or transformational?

  • Businesses regularly use this data for adaptation purposes. (No, Partially, Yes)

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially or Yes: Please briefly explain and provide one or more examples of the most significant uses you're aware of.

    If Partially or Yes: Is there evidence that these uses have focused on adaptation for communities or regions identified as specifically vulnerable?

    If Partially or Yes: Would you characterize these uses as predominantly incremental or transformational?

  • Community or civil society organizations regularly use this data for adaptation purposes. (No, Partially, Yes)

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially or Yes: Please briefly explain and provide one or more examples of the most significant uses you're aware of.

    If Partially or Yes: Is there evidence that these uses have focused on adaptation for communities or regions identified as specifically vulnerable?

    If Partially or Yes: Would you characterize these uses as predominantly incremental or transformational?

  • Media regularly use this data to investigate or otherwise report on adaptation efforts. (No, Partially, Yes)

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially or Yes: Please briefly explain and provide one or more examples of the most significant uses you're aware of.

    If Partially or Yes: Is there evidence that these uses have focused on adaptation for communities or regions identified as specifically vulnerable?

    If Partially or Yes: Would you characterize these uses as predominantly incremental or transformational?

Extent

  • There is evidence that these uses are having meaningful positive impacts.
    • No
    • Partially
      Supporting questions: Please briefly explain and provide URLs to relevant evidence.
    • Yes
      Supporting questions: Please briefly explain and provide URLs to relevant evidence.

Definitions and Identification

Climate and biodiversity data offer key tools for proposing and taking climate action. When climate and biodiversity data are available at the local level, a diverse range of local actors can use the data to create, expand, or refine mitigation or adaptation efforts.

For example:

  • A national ministry might use data on endangered species to help identify ecosystem conservation priorities or measure efforts to repair ecosystem degradation.
  • A community organization might use vulnerability data to advocate for resources to establish a seawall or plant mangrove trees to help address flood risks.
  • A city government might use emissions data to track the impact of green energy projects and energy efficiency initiatives.
  • Journalists might use climate vulnerability data to report on how climate vulnerability intersects with other forms of societal inequities.
  • A business might use emissions data to assess its carbon footprint and implement measurable practices to reduce it.
  • A civil society organization might use climate or biodiversity data as the grounds for reforesting land.
  • Lawmakers might use climate or biodiversity data to introduce or expand economic incentives that support mitigation or adaptation and to end subsidies of practices that degrade ecosystems.
  • Journalists might use climate or biodiversity data to investigate the efficacy of government efforts.
  • A business might use climate or biodiversity data to design products or services to facilitate an adaptive practice.
  • A smallholder farmer might use climate or biodiversity data to change crops or planting strategies.

For this indicator, we take a broad lens on what constitutes mitigation and adaptation and focus on uses by national governments, sub-national governments, the private sector, civil society and community organizations, and the media. While individual members of the public are also climate actors in their own right, with many taking large and small actions informed by climate and biodiversity data, these actions are often intimate to their lives and consequently difficult for this index to assess.

As you assess how regularly this data is used by various actors, please look for evidence as to whether these uses have focused on adaptation for communities or regions identified as specifically vulnerable, and whether or not you would judge such adaptation efforts as predominantly incremental or transformational.

"Incremental adaptation refers to actions where the central aim is to maintain the essence and integrity of the existing technological, institutional, governance, and value systems, such as through adjustments to cropping systems via new varieties, changing planting times, or using more efficient irrigation. In contrast, transformational adaptation seeks to change the fundamental attributes of systems in response to actual or expected climate and its effects, often at a scale and ambition greater than incremental activities. It includes changes in activities, such as changing livelihoods from cropping to livestock or by migrating to take up a livelihood elsewhere, and also changes in our perceptions and paradigms about the nature of climate change, adaptation, and their relationship to other natural and human systems" (IPCC WGII AR5 839; italics added)

Three caveats:

First, longstanding political obstacles to climate action mean that not all adaptation and mitigation efforts are explicitly identified as such; in some cases these may be subsumed under disaster reduction or disaster management as more politically acceptable categories.

Second, this indicator seeks examples of uses that are substantial; please carefully evaluate whether the mitigation or adaptation effort the data use supports is substantial or is an example of greenwashing, or the adoption of superficial climate- or biodiversity-friendly changes primarily for appearance's sake while neglecting or avoiding more substantial change.

Third, some adaptation projects have significant negative consequences that make them maladaptive in the short or long run. Maladaptation describes the situation "where intervention in one location or sector could increase the vulnerability of another location or sector, or increase the vulnerability of the target group to future climate change" (IPCC WGII AR5; see particularly 14.7.3). For example, relocating crops may harm other ecosystems, increased use of sprinkler systems to lower temperatures can affect local water supplies, a seawall may direct erosion elsewhere, a desalinization plant may enhance water supply resilience but damage sites important to a local indigenous community. (Examples adapted from Dolšak and Prakash 2018.) When identifying example uses, please discard those that show maladaptive consequences.

Starting points

  • Sources:

    • Some city-level commitments and actions can be found through global city-level networks such as C40.
    • Solutions Story Tracker gathers solutions journalism articles from around the world and can be searched by location and original keywords as well as specific topic categories and nested subcategories (e.g., "environment" has subcategories for "climate action," "biodiversity," and others)

  • Search:

    • News sites for articles about mitigation of or adaptation to climate change or extreme weather hazards; disaster management or disaster resilience and climate-related keywords; ecosystem services, nature-based solutions; etc.
    • Websites of local civil society organizations that focus on climate, conservation, biodiversity, nature.
    • Websites of national and sub-national governments that focus on climate change, nature conservation, environment, agriculture, energy, land, transportation, disaster management, risk planning, foresight.

  • Consult:

    • Government officials at national or sub-national agencies that focus on climate change, nature conservation, environment, disaster management, risk planning, foresight, agriculture, energy, land, transportation.
    • Scholars at local universities or researchers at civil society organizations who research climate mitigation, climate adaptation, climate vulnerability, ecosystem services.
    • Officers at civil society organizations who work on implementing climate- or biodiversity-related projects within communities.
    • Journalists who cover or have particular expertise on climate change, the environment, nature conservation, agriculture, energy.
    • Officers of civil society organizations that focus on climate transparency, climate finance, or accountability in government.

What to look for?

Focusing in turn on national government, sub-national government, the private sector, community and civil society organizations, and the media, look for evidence that can answer the following questions:

  • Does this kind of actor regularly use some form of climate or biodiversity data for mitigation or adaptation purposes? Or do they perhaps only use such data infrequently? Or never, as far as you can determine?
  • Do only certain kinds of climate or biodiversity data seem to be being used? Are others largely neglected?
  • What kinds of impacts do you see from these uses, and how significant are these impacts?

As the UN’s 2030 Agenda makes clear, addressing the climate crisis is a globally agreed public good. Climate change, and the actions that governments and publics can take to mitigate and adapt to climate change, are matters of vital importance around the world. Data can be a useful tool for prioritizing and assessing climate action, as well as a means to expand the number of groups who can track and propose climate action, take meaningful action in their own communities and organizations, and hold governments accountable for their actions—or inaction.

Mindfulness of the climate crisis and the need for collaborative climate action underlies all of the sustainable development goals. Goal 13: Climate Action specifically calls for countries to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. Target 13.1 focuses on adaptation and resilience; target 13.3 on improving awareness and capacities for mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction, and early warnings.

Biodiversity and climate have increasingly been recognized as inseparable and approached together through the ecosystem services model. The need to take action to protect biodiversity is articulated in the Aichi 2020 Biodiversity Targets (with targets 10 and 15 specifically related to effects of climate change), as well as the Sendai Framework 28(b), SDG 14: Life Below Water, and SDG 15: Life on Land.