Establishing a Resilient Climate Data Environment
In order to harness the potential of the data-for-public-good ecosystem for addressing the growing impact of Climate Change, data-based interventions need to be human-centric, interoperable, standardised and contextual.
By Dr. Jeeno George, CivicDataLab & Kabeer Arora
We can no longer deny that a sound data ecosystem can help drive strategic decisions towards building disaster-resilient infrastructure, cities and societies. However, data that could enable such processes is scattered across different agencies, scales and formats, limiting informed and evidence-based decision-making. This results in inefficient actions or ad-hoc responses that fail to cater to urgent needs during emergencies or even provide sustainable long-term solutions.
As per the World Meteorological Organisation Report 2021, the world experienced an extreme weather event nearly every day over the past 50 years, leading to daily losses of over US$ 200 million (World Meteorological Association 2022). To be able to address this devastation, which has become the norm today, access to near-real-time, standardised and AI-ready data is key to policymaking and sustainable interventions.
Traditional methods, processes and interventions are no longer sufficient to address climate change impact. Environmental concerns such as air and water pollution can be addressed through local, state or national interventions. However, climate change is a problem of the global commons and impacts the entire planet. Therefore, the problem needs to be addressed in a more holistic way, which will lead to universally adoptable strategies.
A sound climate data ecosystem could do this. Such an ecosystem enhances the potential of innovations for climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction amid intensifying extreme weather events. It allows modelling intelligent solutions using advanced AI and machine learning techniques to inform decision-making. It will not only take into account the diverse factors to guide climate change adaptation but also allow an understanding of climate change as a global issue beyond state boundaries. Since we share a common atmosphere, the nature of climate change is diverse and spans across scales and jurisdictions, not just at transnational scale but also at national and sub-national levels.
Defining Climate Data to Include Social Wellbeing
The fragmented and segregated efforts to address the most pressing challenge that humanity is facing at present, is no longer an option. For an effective, holistic and sustainable action on climate change, the definition of climate data itself needs to be multifaceted, pertaining not only to Earth’s climate system but also its relationship to human societies, economics and natural ecosystems. Only with a human-centric definition, will climate data contribute to developing a comprehensive and interdisciplinary understanding of climate change. Climate data must include human and social wellbeing as a key index to drive resilient interventions.
There have been multiple global and regional efforts to index open data in analysing disaster risk and climate change impact but often this data only pertains to the weather or critical infrastructure losses. This approach has led to the exclusion of many critical datasets, such as those on public expenditure by Government agencies, from the discussions on climate action. The lack of a universally accepted definition results in ineffective and unsustainable responses.
Effective Action on Climate Change needs Collaborations
There are institutional and political barriers to data-sharing and co-creation between countries and even between organisations. In recent years, tech developers have created web-based platforms that facilitate improved disaster risk assessment and provide insights for better preparedness and response by creating more collaborative systems. At the global level, WESR — Climate Geospatial Information (‘WESR: Climate’ 2023), developed by a network of organisations including UN entities, is an open-access portal of environmental data, information and knowledge that focuses on climate change. Such a repository of data supports decision-making, policy and action at the global, regional, national and local levels.
The WESR-Common Country Analysis (WESR-CCA) provides country-wise environmental information on an open platform for baseline assessment and transition towards sustainable development goals (‘Home | WESR — CCA Portal’ 2023). Similarly, there are regional platforms such as Mekong X-Ray (‘Mekong X-Ray’ 2023) for the Lower Mekong Region, and country-level platforms such as Malawi’s MASDAP (‘Www.Masdap.Mw’ 2023).
Without collaboration between governments across boundaries, such initiatives can achieve little. The nature of data is diverse and is produced in the context of specific administrative boundaries, making it imperative for the local and regional government to work together along with other stakeholders to provide holistic, near-real-time data.
Most disaster risk reduction platforms are designed to function only during times of disaster. This leads to a lack of insight on a near-real-time basis or even at regular, frequent intervals about public investments for disaster preparedness and mitigation.
We need to build capacities and enable government agencies, non-governmental organisations, academic institutions and private entities to contribute to the data ecosystem and collaborate through a federated network. This would encourage public accountability and transparency, as more people are observing and using the data.The benefits of such frameworks can be seen in the ‘EU Cities Mission’s 100 climate-neutral and smart cities by 2030’ initiative, which is using data from a wide variety of sources to tackle societal and climate challenges (Autero et al. 2023).
Way Forward
There is an urgent need to commit to developing a comprehensive Climate Data Ecosystem that will include the collection, standardisation, analysis and dissemination of data on physical, biological, sociocultural and economic aspects, including public finance data and qualitative indicators of human wellbeing. This ecosystem should encompass information on the past, present and future impacts on natural ecosystems, human societies and economies.
Such an ecosystem will allow the modelling of intelligent solutions using technological tools such as AI and machine learning techniques to guide decision-makers. A key objective needs to be to prioritise channelling of public funds for the most vulnerable populations using up-to-date, data-driven models.
To make build a resilient and holistic climate data ecosystem, making interoperable, AI-ready and standardised, datasets across the following climate-change related categories must be included:
1) Geospatial and weather
2) Socio-economic and demographic vulnerabilities, including public health
3) Losses and damages caused by disasters
4) Access to critical infrastructure for coping with disasters such as transportation networks, community buildings, relief shelters and hospitals.
5) Governance response and public finance
Comprehensive and accurate information on climate conditions, with the aim of supporting evidence-based policymaking, planning and management to build resilient infrastructure and enhance the wellbeing of societies, is the only way towards a better tomorrow. Investing in timely and strategic infrastructure can help mitigate some of the worst effects of climate change-induced disasters. There is a need to explore mechanisms for effective tracking of the commitments made towards building disaster and climate-resilient infrastructure. The effectiveness of the investments can be traced through budgetary commitments, public procurement data and other public expenditures data, if made publicly available. Such datasets are crucial for conducting any analysis of the framework for climate action.
* Based on CivicDataLab’s T20 policy paper on Building a Climate Data Ecosystem for Disaster-Resilient Infrastructure and Societies
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CivicDataLab, with support from The Rockefeller Foundation, has been expanding this work through co-creation of knowledge and dialogue between a diverse group of stakeholders. We have conducted virtual as well as in-person convenings to further strengthen the open data for public good ecosystem for leveraging evidence based decision making for sustainable climate action.
We recently concluded a two-day gathering — CivicSabha — with support by The Rockefeller Foundation, in Delhi. This conference was attended by central and state government agencies, philanthropic organisations, civil society organisations, entrepreneurs, industry thought leaders and others working in the open-data-ecosystem. Here, we gathered perspectives and learnings from innovative data practitioners working in India and other countries to harness the potential of data-driven decision making for resilient action on climate change.
About CivicDataLab: CivicDataLab (CDL) works at the intersection of data, technology, design and social science to strengthen access to public information, evidence-based decision making and citizen participation in governance. CDL harnesses the potential of open knowledge movements to strengthen the data-for-public-good ecosystem and enable citizens to engage in matters of public reform. We work closely with governments, non-profits, think-tanks, media houses and universities to enhance their data and technology capacity to better data-driven decision-making at scale.
Our current areas of expertise include digital public goods & infrastructure (DPGs & DPI), climate change, public finance, urban development, open contracting and law & justice. We have co-created digital public goods like open data platforms, data exchanges, data science models and citizen-led apps for improving participatory data-driven governance in India and other countries.
In the last five years, we have collected, cleaned and published nearly 30,000+ public interest datasets and are catering to an active user base of more than a million citizens. Some of our publicly available open data initiatives include Open Budgets India, Justice Hub, Open Contracting India, Open City, CogniCity among others. We have co-created digital public goods with National Informatics Center (NIC), Ministry of Electronic & Information Technology (MeitY) and the Government of Assam. Additionally we actively build capacity for a diverse group of partners working to enhance social impact, situated in India, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Panama and Scotland.
