Periodic Reporting for period 2 - RECEIPT (REmote Climate Effects and their Impact on European sustainability, Policy and Trade)
Berichtszeitraum: 2021-03-01 bis 2022-02-28
RECEIPT maps the sensitivity of five European socio-economic sectors to climate change features that occur outside its borders. Through trade, supply chains and multiple global interconnections climate change in other parts of the world indirectly affects the European society. Recent disasters such as hurricane Sandy (2011) or the Thailand floods (2011) show that the multidimensional and complex nature of interactions and remote climate effects are not well understood.
The project focuses on five sectors: agriculture, finance, international development, manufacturing and coastal infrastructure. Exploring and understanding remote climate effects involves wide-ranging and complex analysis and interpretation. In RECEIPT we take a bottom-up approach and keep a sector-oriented perspective. We are building sectoral ‘storylines’: narratives of consistent and plausible chains of events, stories and data that illustrate risk-oriented cause-effect interactions. The impact of climate change will be felt by stakeholders in these sectors in different ways. The storylines will evaluate drivers and impacts of specific events, and map changing climatic and socio-economic drivers onto the cause-effect chains, in order to illustrate the implications of climate change in a world different from today.
The project focuses on five sectors: agriculture, finance, international development, manufacturing and coastal infrastructure. Exploring and understanding remote climate effects involves wide-ranging and complex analysis and interpretation. In RECEIPT we take a bottom-up approach and keep a sector-oriented perspective. We are building sectoral ‘storylines’: narratives of consistent and plausible chains of events, stories and data that illustrate risk-oriented cause-effect interactions. The impact of climate change will be felt by stakeholders in these sectors in different ways. The storylines will evaluate drivers and impacts of specific events, and map changing climatic and socio-economic drivers onto the cause-effect chains, in order to illustrate the implications of climate change in a world different from today.
In the first 1.5 years of the project the emphasis of the project team was on developing the concept of climate storylines that can provide risk information on climate change effects with a remote origin and a noticeable impact on European socio-economic developments.
The concept isolates specific impact pathways between the climate hotspot and the European domain by tracing effects of anomalous climate features and the propagation across the impact pathway. A scoping process with societal stakeholders, analysis of available data and model projects, and the design of sectoral storylines and its associated modelling infrastructure were targeted in this first period.
In the current second reporting period the emphasis is shifting into four directions. First, a further consolidation and documentation of the sectoral storylines has received considerable attention. Models have been set-up and validated or calibrated, papers have been written describing the rationale of the concept (WP1 and WP2) and the individual sectoral storyline experiments (WP3-8), and additional testing with visualization and contextualization has been applied (WP9). Second, a set of alternative (or counterfactual) storylines has been developed, focusing on the impacts of altered (climate) conditions on the unfolding of the event cascades depicted in the storylines. Third, a new research branch is set-up using a so-called Bayesian Network approach, in which storylines can be condensed into elementary impact cascades and large ensembles can be generated to detect critical uncertainties and explore impact of (policy) interventions (WP8). Finally, a range of outreach activities has been organized focusing on the systemic nature of climate change impacts, parallels with evidence on cascading impact pathways encountered during COVID-19, and the lessons learned so far from the CASCADES and RECEIPT project presented during ECCA2021.
The concept isolates specific impact pathways between the climate hotspot and the European domain by tracing effects of anomalous climate features and the propagation across the impact pathway. A scoping process with societal stakeholders, analysis of available data and model projects, and the design of sectoral storylines and its associated modelling infrastructure were targeted in this first period.
In the current second reporting period the emphasis is shifting into four directions. First, a further consolidation and documentation of the sectoral storylines has received considerable attention. Models have been set-up and validated or calibrated, papers have been written describing the rationale of the concept (WP1 and WP2) and the individual sectoral storyline experiments (WP3-8), and additional testing with visualization and contextualization has been applied (WP9). Second, a set of alternative (or counterfactual) storylines has been developed, focusing on the impacts of altered (climate) conditions on the unfolding of the event cascades depicted in the storylines. Third, a new research branch is set-up using a so-called Bayesian Network approach, in which storylines can be condensed into elementary impact cascades and large ensembles can be generated to detect critical uncertainties and explore impact of (policy) interventions (WP8). Finally, a range of outreach activities has been organized focusing on the systemic nature of climate change impacts, parallels with evidence on cascading impact pathways encountered during COVID-19, and the lessons learned so far from the CASCADES and RECEIPT project presented during ECCA2021.
The application of the climate storyline approach and the development of first storylines is a learning experience resulting in a guiding practice towards the understanding of cross-border climate change manifestations in climate and human systems. New model chains and adjusted model formulations are tailored to sector-specific topics, including agricultural trade, insurance and risk from (tropical) cyclones.
The project has already resulted in influential papers, including in high level journals (Zappa et al., 2021, Ercin et al., 2021, Falkendal et al., 2021, (Shepherd & Lloyd, 2021), Sillman et al, 2022, Kotz et al, 2022). Further on, the project has contributed to the UNDRR Global Assessment Report (GAR 2022) and the INFORM Risk reports and Climate risk Index. The work is relevant for IPCC activities, citations in upcoming IPCC reports are expected.
The COVID-19 pandemic is bringing previously unseen systemic and transboundary impacts, with many parallels to the impacts of climate change. RECEIPT, together with the Horizon 2020 project CASCADES has published a policy brief reflecting on the lessons drawn from COVID-19 on climate preparedness. The policy brief has enriched our understanding of the systemic nature of the way how climate change impacts will emerge. This knowledge will be visible in upcoming activities, particularly in WP8 (system integration and risk analysis).
The project has already resulted in influential papers, including in high level journals (Zappa et al., 2021, Ercin et al., 2021, Falkendal et al., 2021, (Shepherd & Lloyd, 2021), Sillman et al, 2022, Kotz et al, 2022). Further on, the project has contributed to the UNDRR Global Assessment Report (GAR 2022) and the INFORM Risk reports and Climate risk Index. The work is relevant for IPCC activities, citations in upcoming IPCC reports are expected.
The COVID-19 pandemic is bringing previously unseen systemic and transboundary impacts, with many parallels to the impacts of climate change. RECEIPT, together with the Horizon 2020 project CASCADES has published a policy brief reflecting on the lessons drawn from COVID-19 on climate preparedness. The policy brief has enriched our understanding of the systemic nature of the way how climate change impacts will emerge. This knowledge will be visible in upcoming activities, particularly in WP8 (system integration and risk analysis).