The UK Climate Resilience Programme ran from 2019 to 2023

Understanding the enablers and barriers to acceleration of climate service uptake

This Work Package includes four Activities that collectively advance thinking regarding how to accelerate the uptake and use of Climate Services on a national scale.

One aspect of this is the potential for a UK National Framework for Climate Services (NFCS), aligned to the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS). The growing climate services landscape in the UK comprises multiple different groups, activities and products to meet different priorities. This dynamic and diverse landscape would benefit from greater national coordination to ensure investment is directed towards priority areas and to connect practitioners and decision-makers. This could facilitate a higher functioning climate services landscape benefitting UK interests, UK enhanced adaptation and mitigation reducing risk to UK citizens and business. Consideration will be given to the needs of all stakeholders involved with climate service co-development, co-delivery and use within the UK landscape.  landscape.

A Met Office led project within this Work Package, Facilitating the delivery and use of climate services, will run a series of engagement workshops with identified key stakeholders to explore whether there is a desire and requirement for a UK NFCS, the potential benefits it may bring and how it may be structured. Following these stakeholder engagement activities, a positioning paper will be produced laying out the shared vision on whether a UK NFCS is needed, and if so then recommendations on its structure and implementation. Further details are available here.

A second project within this Work Package is developing a new standards framework for climate services, and a methodology for monitoring and valuing climate services (details are available here). The standard framework is designed to help climate service users feel confident to make effective and informed decisions and manage climate risks better. It is also designed for climate service providers to have an approved, national standards framework to use when developing new services, or measuring existing services against. Climate Service providers can also benefit commercially by demonstrating that their services are meeting national standards. This project is building on a prior UKCR project with details here.

A third project within this Work Package is aiming to better understand future needs for climate information to inform decision making (details are available here). Through workshops and consultation activities, this project is investigating what users need from climate information to support decision making and investment planning, and what climate information providers can do to meet users’ needs, accounting for new scientific developments and opportunities.

Finally, a further Met Office led project is considering how to exploit the existing pilot services developed under the UKCR Programme and “upscale” them such that we move beyond pilot to routine services, making them useful and accessible to other stakeholders.

Watch Climate Resilience Webinar, 14 July 2021: Framing the Framework: Addressing the need for UK National Framework for Climate Services, with Nicola Golding and Louise Wilson.