This post is written by Cathy Krüger, inter-regional advisor at the Partnership for Statistics in Development in the 21st Century (PARIS21),and Joel Gurin, president of the Center for Open Data Enterprise (CODE).

  • The problem: Many stakeholders, particularly those in developing and low-income countries, struggle to apply climate and climate-relevant data for action, despite the rapidly growing amount of information being collected.
  • Why it matters: Without adequate data and the ability to apply it, countries, international organizations, private companies, and other actors will not be able to take the steps needed to mitigate and adapt to the worst impacts of the climate crisis.
  • The solution: Developing holistic Climate Change Data Ecosystems at the country level will allow stakeholders to more easily develop, share, and use high-quality climate change data for action to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis.

The impacts of climate change are becoming universal, devastating, and enormously complex. For us to predict and understand the impacts of even a single climate change-related disaster, we need much more than data on temperature, extreme weather events, and flood risks. We also need a wealth of interconnected data on healthcare, infrastructure, finance, energy supply, and many other critical factors to understand and manage climate change's effects. Many countries, particularly low- and middle-income economies, struggle to produce and use the data they need to deal with the climate crisis.

We need a new approach. Countries that can bring climate actors together, make data more coherent, and make it possible to combine different kinds of data more effectively will be more resilient to climate change. A holistic climate change data ecosystem, or CCDE, that empowers countries with timely, comprehensive and inclusive data from a wide range of sources, should be a key component of climate solutions.

Bridging knowledge gaps to promote effective climate action

Data can be used for climate action in a variety of ways. Take, for example, the risk of increased coastal flooding. Data is needed to identify coastal communities vulnerable to rising sea levels, design appropriate flood mitigation measures and put them in place, target funding to help individuals adapt their property to increased flood risk, and manage evacuation and other logistics in a disaster scenario.

This data will be sourced from a variety of sectors and agencies at the sub-national, national, regional and international levels. For example, data from the environment ministry, meteorological office, disaster and emergency management agency, national statistical office, local planning authority, community-based organisations, healthcare systems, and even private companies would all inform decision-making in this scenario. Even when such varied data exists, limited collaboration and data sharing between relevant organisations can prevent it from being used for effective action. And data may not be usable if it is stored in restrictive formats or unknown to policymakers and other potential users.

Countries that can bring climate actors together, make data more coherent, and make it possible to combine different kinds of data more effectively will be more resilient to climate change.

To unlock the full potential of data for climate action, we need to embrace a more holistic approach to data that ties together information from administrative sources, geospatial information systems, weather monitoring systems, climate reporting data, household surveys, and industry monitoring and evaluation systems. Many countries are already taking steps in this direction and are using data from several sources. However, these initiatives rarely take a systematic or fully coherent approach.

Supporting the countries most at risk

While climate change will impact every part of our planet and every person on it, those impacts will not happen equally or on the same timeline. Coastal countries, particularly small island developing states (SIDS), will be the first and hardest hit as they deal with sea level rises and more frequent ocean storms in addition to higher temperatures, increased fire risk, loss of biodiversity, and other hazards faced by inland populations. For example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2022 Assessment Report shows that a rise in sea level will double the flooding frequency between now and 2050 in much of the Indian Ocean and Tropical Pacific, impacting SIDS in particular.

Antigua and Barbuda is one of many small islands on the frontline of climate change. They have begun to tackle the challenge of identifying data for climate action through their National Environmental Data and Information System (NEIS) and Natural Resources Inventory (NRI). The NEIS and NRI were built to manage data and information for multilateral environmental agreements, but they provide benefits well beyond reporting. Centralising reporting through the NEIS and NRI, along with an associated data-sharing agreement, has encouraged agencies to make their data available to other agencies as well as the public while fostering data integration. This collaborative approach has reduced duplication and made it easier for Antigua and Barbuda’s government to make decisions and set policies that consider a range of economic, social, and environmental data while enabling non-governmental actors to use the same data for their own needs.

An ecosystem approach to expand and systematize the use of climate change data

In April 2022, PARIS21, which promotes statistical capacity development and the use of statistics in low- and middle-income countries, proposed a path forward in a paper drafted with the non-profit Center for Open Data Enterprise, or CODE. “Envisioning a Climate Change Data Ecosystem” made the case that a CCDE approach will provide the best way to coordinate data for climate action within and across countries. The paper argues that the world needs these data ecosystems on at least two levels: data ecosystems that enable countries to better use their own data across sectors and silos, as Antigua and Barbuda has done, and a larger, global CCDE that enables all countries to share critical types of global data to help manage the climate crisis on an international scale.

If we hope to address the impacts of climate change, we need actionable data to understand them.

As a partnership of hundreds of data users and producers around the world, PARIS21 is well placed to bring together a range of stakeholders to map a CCDE and propose best practices to turn data into action. PARIS21 and its partners will identify and build on existing best practices, build partnerships with development organisations at the global and regional level, build tools to assess and develop national level CCDE efforts and work towards implementation in pilot countries. By leveraging the value of a CCDE approach, this work can help many countries accelerate their progress on climate change adaptation and mitigation.

If we hope to address the impacts of climate change, we need actionable data to understand them. A country-driven, ecosystems approach to climate change data will overcome existing barriers to using climate change data for action, ensure increased collaboration and data sharing, and benefit the world.

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