Are European decision-makers preparing for high-end climate change?

Despite the Paris Agreement target of holding global temperature increases 1.5 to 2°C above pre-industrial levels, high-end climate change (HECC) scenarios going beyond 4°C are becoming increasingly plausible. HECC may imply increasing climate variability and extremes as well as the triggering of tipping points, posing further difficulties for adaptation.

This paper*, published in Regional Environmental Change (Capela Lourenço et al. 2018), compares the outcomes of four concurrent European case studies (EU, Hungary, Portugal and Scotland) that explore the individual and institutional conditions, and the information used to underpin adaptation-related decision-making in the context of HECC. The focus is on (i) whether HECC scenarios are used in current adaptation-related decision-making processes; (ii) the role of uncertainty and how climate and non-climate information is used (or not) in these processes; and (iii) the information types (including socio-economic drivers) commonly used and their limitations in relation to HECC scenarios.

Decision-makers perceive HECC as having a low probability or distant occurrence and do not routinely account for HECC scenarios within existing climate actions. They also perceive non-climate drivers as at least as important as, in many cases more important than, climate change alone.

While more information about the implications of particular sectoral and cross-sectoral impacts is needed, climate change uncertainty is not a significant barrier to decision-making. Further understanding of individual and institutional challenges brought about by the “squeeze” between adapting to HECC scenarios or to lower levels of temperature change (like those agreed in Paris) is essential to better contextualise the use of climate change information.

This paper is affiliated to the IMPRESSIONS project.

*Find summaries of key sections of the paper below. Download the full text from the right-hand column for more detailed information.

Interview results indicate no particular constraints in the access to climate change information (high-end or not) in the four cases (European, Hungarian, Portuguese and Scottish) and point that its use in the decision-making processes is rather common (Fig. 2, below). However, it also shows that limitations in the use of this sort of information are also commonly reported by decision-makers. As to the usefulness of this information in helping making decisions (adaptation-related or not), a different case emerges. In two of the cases where more detailed information is available, Scotland and Portugal, between one third and half of the respondents agree that climate change information has proven useful and helped making adaptation-related decisions. Interestingly, rather than replying negatively to the question about how helpful was the climate change information to the decision-making processes, the remaining participants preferred not to answer or stated they were unsure.

When questioned on existing limitations to the use of climate change (HECC or otherwise) information for decision-making, the views expressed by the participants point towards issues of usability and availability of specific types of climate information rather than about uncertainty in the information.