Join the debate – new online dialogue on foresight activities in CCA/DRR
Dear weADAPT community,
One of the objectives of PLACARD, an EC Horizon 2020 project, is to facilitate communication and knowledge exchange between the climate change adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR) communities. As such, we are running a number of dialogues on different subjects relevant to both CCA and DRR – if you belong to these communities of practice we would like to hear from you!
This round of dialogue will focus on the application of Foresight activities, methods and tools in climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction research and practice to explore their value and application as well as to explore examples of good practice. The questions for discussion are given below.
It will last until the 28th September, so please bear in mind the short period as we would highly appreciate as many contributions as possible.
You can register and join the dialogue through the PreventionWeb portal or you can join the conversation through the TDDR discussion forum on weADAPT.
Questions for the online dialogue:
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What topics do you consider important to include in foresight activities related to disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA) for their harmonisation/integration?
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How can outcomes from foresight activities, methods and tools support the identification of future research and implementation priorities in disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA)?
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Can you share examples of good practices where foresight has been applied to the development of (novel) joint DRR and CCA methods and tools?
Background
The Paris Agreement at COP21 on climate change and Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction were both major steps towards increasing resilience to climate-related extreme events. Long-term risk and response analyses in support of these agreements and the IPCC assessments tend to be dominated by the development and formal analysis of Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) and Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). While such analyses are an important mechanism to advance analytical knowledge about future risks, they constrain creative analysis and there is a complementary role for more qualitative foresight developed by diverse experts and stakeholders to explore future risks and opportunities.
Foresight is a forward-looking approach that aims to help decision-makers explore and anticipate in a participatory way what might happen, as well as prepare for a range of possible future scenarios, influence them and shape the future. Instead of predicting the future, foresight typically involves systematic, participatory, future-intelligence-gathering and medium-to-long-term vision-building processes to uncover a range of possible alternative future visions. Key foresight methods include horizon scanning and scenario building. (Definition by NRC FLIS Interest Group, see http://forum.eionet.europa.eu/nrc-flis/portal_glossary/glossary/foresight?lang=en)
Many thanks in advance,
Best wishes,
Monica
Research Fellow, SEI Oxford team
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(3) Comments
Dear Monica,
I believe one of the most prominent outcomes of recent European activities around foresight has been the identification and characterization of future global and regional ‘Megatrends’ (e.g. technological change, changing disease burden and pandemics, global competition for resources, etc.).
In my perspective, one important joint research problem across DRR and CCA would be to better understand how such Megatrends can influence or alter current and future climate-related risks and vulnerabilities at the regional and local level, in particular those related to extreme weather events.
For example, how important is technological change in increasing the adaptive capacity of communities and the effectiveness of their disaster response, when faced with extreme events?
Thank you.
Tiago
It is exciting to see foresight being discussed, because this forward-thinking approach is needed to solve the challenges of DRR including CCA. Part of seeking to understand the future–not the entire story, but an essential component–is learning from and applying lessons from the past, without assuming that everything in the past applies to the future.
In foresight activities, I suggest that we need to learn from history while examining why history sometimes does not seem to be of interest and why separating fields seems to be preferable to joining forces and collaborating. CCA has provided so little which is new; we already had the techniques, ideas, theories, and practices from DRR and development. Yet CCA seems to enjoy being separate from DRR, rather than being part of it, and seems to enjoy re-inventing what exists already rather than applying existing expertise.
I would hope that foresight would therefore:
1. Look to a future in which CCA becomes part of DRR rather than being separate.
2. Create a future in which CCA learns from the older DRR and development lessons.
3. Develop techniques to bring expertise, ideas, and approaches together, rather than entrenching artificial and unnecessary silos.
A few thoughts on moving forward with these ideas for DRR including CCA are at http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11069-016-2294-0 and http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13753-015-0038-5 I look forward to others’ critiques and suggestions on this topic.
Thank you for the opportunity to participate and I look forward to learning,
ILAN
http://www.ilankelman.org
Twitter @ILANKELMAN
Dear all,
I was just reflecting about the use of foresight and want to share one of my recent experiences with foresight in terms of including climate-related risks into local and regional decision making.
The City of Lienz, a role model for the “Making cities resilient Campaign” was volunteers and supported the work on the improvement of it´s already well established disaster risk management.
Here we used the approach of “Local Reasons for Concern – LRC” (a downscaling of the IPCC concept of the Global Burning Embers – Reasons for Concern) in assessing the current risks on the one hand and then considering climate as well as socio-economic trends and scenarios at the other hand, we identified areas of risk management where changes or additional efforts are needed to be keep the current level of resilient, increase the current level of resilience or take first measures.
I guess the presentations summary here http://arise-project.at/en/?page_id=247 or the presentations there http://arise-project.at/en/?page_id=202 an support other in their efforts to use a foreward looking approach.
In ARISE, especially the intensive stakeholder engagement and co-design of the new interactive risk management and adaptation concept supports an increasing resilience at the local and regional level.
Hope to hear from others about their experiences with foresight and foreward-looking approaches.
Best regards,
Markus