REmote Climate Effects and their Impact on European sustainability, Policy and Trade (RECEIPT)

Project description:

In an interconnected world, Europe’s economy will be increasingly affected by climate change impacts that occur beyond its border.  The movement of goods and services, people and capital occurs at ever increasing rates and volumes.  This complex network reveals Europe’s globalized climate exposure, vulnerability and risk structure, through which both gradual and sudden impacts of climatic features at any location on the world (hurricanes, droughts, melting ice sheets) propagate, ultimately impacting Europe’s socio-economic welfare. Public awareness of Europe’s sensitivity to global climate impacts is steadily growing. 

A formal analysis that maps potential impacts of remote climatic features is not straightforward. Climatic drivers, connection pathways, and impacts on economic sectors are interconnected and to some extend mutually dependent. A commonly applied “top-down” model output analysis is therefore unlikely to yield useful, credible and representative information, where all relevant risk components of hazards, exposure and vulnerability are incorporated in a manner that is applicable to the current risk profiles of users.

Building on recent research implies that ‘storylines’, describing the interactions of remote climate effects on European economic sectors, provide complementary insights on remote climate risk. The development of storylines is driven by stakeholders, who assess the effects of remote climate change on Europe through anecdotal and explorative activities. The advantage of assessing risk through storylines over conventional risk assessment is that (a) it reduces a complex collection of data and models into recognizable and understandable storyline scenarios, and (b) since the storylines themselves are developed together with stakeholders, their risk impacts will be more easily accepted and adopted in policy and decision making.

In order to provide relevant and quantitative information on the European risks from remote global climatic features, RECEIPT will develop and implement a novel stakeholder driven storytelling concept that maps representative connections between European socio-economic activities and remote climatic hazards. Using a limited number of storylines designed for selected sectors, RECEIPT has the following key objectives:

• Mapping of global hotspots of remote areas, which are relevant for Europe through their connection pathways and sensitivity to climate change, using state of the art climate- and climate impact archives;
• Co-development of sectoral storylines with societal partners, describing the relationship between climate and non-climate drivers of the following socio-economic activities: European food security, finance/capital networks, international development, supply and value chains and European coastal infrastructure;
• Assessment of European socio-economic impacts along each of the selected storylines under three “Paris scenarios”, representing different interlinked socio-economic development, adaptation, mitigation and climate change pathways towards mid-21st century;
• A robust synthesis of the storylines resulting in a pan-European socio-economic risk assessment focusing on the difference between the three “Paris scenarios”;
• Innovative web-based concepts for visualizing potential impacts of remote drivers and risk mitigation options.

Project funding:  Horizon 2020

Project coordinator: Deltares (the Netherlands)

Project partners: Deltares, CASE– Centrum Analiz Społeczno-Ekonomicznych – Fundacja Naukowa (Poland), Koninklijk Nederlands Meteorologisch Instituut-Knmi, Stichting Vu, Stichting Netherlands Escience Center, Internationales Institut Fuer Angewandte Systemanalys, Potsdam Institut Fuer Klimafolgenforschung, Eidgenoessische Technische Hochschule Zuerich, Universitaet Bern, R2 Water, Arctik Sprl, Fondazione Centro Euro-Mediterraneo Sui Cambiamenti Climatici, The University Of Reading, Cicero Senter Klimaforskning Stiftelse, Stichting Solidaridad, Sayers And Partners Llp, University of Leeds, Stichting International Red Cross Red Crescent Centre on Climate Change And Disaster Preparedness

Project website https://climatestorylines.eu/