Prospects for Enhancing Climate Services in Agriculture

Agricultural stakeholders can effectively manage the risks and opportunities arising from climate change and variability by enhancing climate services in agriculture. Key to understanding and addressing the climate challenge is the provision and the use of climate information to aid decision-makers and policy-makers. Climate services are now integral to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Assessment Reports, governments' national adaptation plans, funding bodies, and a growing number of sectors and industries worldwide. The article provides our personal perspective, experience, and views on the important and timely issue of managing better the risks and opportunities to the agriculture sector and community that are arising from changes in climate. We describe a framework to help drive action to tackle the climate challenge comprising enhanced knowledge and information products, efficient information delivery and use, and assured policy and institutional support, in an iterative loop.

Climate services for managing societal risks and opportunities

The Earth’s climate and changes to it impact our lives, well-being and economy in numerous ways, some positive and some negative. Managing the risks that arise from changes in the climate over the coming months, years and decades is one of the most pressing challenges that society faces, but there are also some opportunities. The provision and use of climate information in decision-making (i.e. climate services) are central to managing the risks and opportunities. In this article we describe the seemingly complex climate service landscape, the actors in it, what the services are used for, and what next, to help stimulate further action to enable society to reduce risks and realise benefits, particularly timely as the world looks ahead to build a green recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic on the path to net zero emissions. Through a consideration of the value chain for climate services, we emphasise the importance of dialogue and collaboration between those developing, providing and using climate information in decision-making, and stress that a climate service is only worth delivering if it is going to be used by someone to influence an outcome. Co-production can be highly useful for enabling the dialogue and collaborating across the value chain, helping create services based on credible, salient and legitimate knowledge.