Climate risk
A project to define and communicate climate-related risk
About the project
To highlight the latest evidence and better equip experts, we carried out a major work programme on climate risk and its communication.
In August 2021, we awarded seven fellowships to 10 academics and practitioners with expertise in this topic. Our work programme included hosting the Climate Risk Summit, which brought together key experts for an in-depth examination of climate risk topics. Building on this event, our fellows created several resources, including final report a handbook, and a toolkit on climate risk communication.
Resources
Communicating Climate Risk: a handbook
By Climate Risk fellow Freya Roberts, with Kris De Meyer and Lucy Hubble Rose (UCL Climate Action Unit)
This is a practical guide to communicating climate risk, designed for those working at the interface of climate science and policy. It explains insights from psychology and neuroscience on how our brains engage with the idea of climate risk, it highlights journalism hacks for writing about risk clearly, it shares lessons learned from the authors’ experience working with policymakers on climate risk, and it offers a set of useful questions to help other researchers ascertain what policymakers need from climate risk research.
Contact the authors on Twitter @UCL_CAU or email climateactionunit@ucl.ac.uk for further information.
Download it here: Communicating Climate Risk: a handbook
Communicating Climate Risk: a toolkit
By Climate Risk fellows Jo Walton and Polina Levontin (AU4DM)
This resource seeks to narrow the gap between climate science and climate action, by providing insights, recommendations, and tools for all forms of climate-related communication and decision-making, and identifies open problems. It draws together best practice on the effective communication of climate information from across STEM, social sciences, and arts and humanities. The Toolkit builds on previous work by AU4DM and partly emerges from conversations at and around the COP26 Universities Network Climate Risk Summit, as well as survey questions shared with its participants.
Download it here: Communicating Climate Risk: a toolkit
Climate Risk Decision-making: translation of decision support into policy
By Erik Mackie (University of Cambridge), Irena L.C. Connon (University of Stirling), Mark Workman (Imperial College London), Alyssa Gilbert (Imperial College London), Emily Shuckburgh (University of Cambridge)
Why are the plethora of climate risk assessments and decision support tools available to decision-makers not always translating into effective policy action on climate risk? What are the challenges, complexities and uncertainties associated with this translational process, and how can we improve the research translation pipeline in order to achieve more effective decision-making on climate policy? These are some of the key questions that this report aims to address, through a combination of a literature review, case study assessment and input from Policy Workshops with stakeholders.
Download it here: Climate Risk Decision-making: Translation of Decision Support into Policy
Briefings
We coordinate and publish briefing papers to share evidence on key climate change topics, written by more than 100 authors from across our member universities.
Latest news
Job: Research Fellow – Net Zero What Works
UUCN were sent the below opportunity to share with academics: We are looking for three 0.5 FTE policy research fellows who will use a multi and cross disciplinary approach to synthesise, validate, and draw on relevant research outcomes spanning a range of application sectors, to inform policy, practice and business solutions that meet Net Zero […]
Research requests from Climate Change Committee & British Academy
Climate Change Committee – research request We received this opportunity from the CCC, looking at integrating economics into the Fourth Climate Change Risk Assessment. They have just launched a tender for some research looking into reviewing potential methodologies for analysing different economic aspects of the CCRA. Specifically, they are looking to understand the most effective […]
Job: Carbon Removals Lead for the Climate Champions Team
The Climate Champions Team are in the process of recruiting a new Carbon Removals Lead. This role provides a unique opportunity to work on arguably the most pressing challenges in the world today, while making significant positive impact. They are seeking intra/entrepreneurial, mission-driven individuals with strategic vision and leadership skills. This is a chance to […]
Joint blog with RUS: The role of universities in tackling the climate crisis
Earlier this month at COP27, the Italian University Network for Sustainable Development (RUS) and the UUCN came together to deliver a pavilion event focused on the role of universities in supporting institutions to meet their climate commitments. In this joint blog, we reflect on the experience of our networks and their members and the role […]
Podcast Series: COP Conversations
COP Conversations is a daily podcast series throughout COP26. The Planet Pod team will be in Glasgow for this crucial climate summit and were podcasting every day bringing listeners insights, reflections and observations from the conference, and hearing from a wide range of voices. Conversations took place with academics, policy makers, politicians, businesses, artists, not […]
COP26 Innovation Showcase (throughout COP26)
UK Universities’ Climate Innovation Showcase The showcase, which comprised of an exhibition of climate-related research, as well as a series of events, was curated by the Network, who wanted to work together in support of the aims of the 26th UNFCCC Conference of the Parties, i.e. COP26. This is a sample of the innovative work going […]
Watch our COP26 Event Recordings
The Network hosted several events in the Green Zone during COP26 in Glasgow, which were live streamed: > ActNowFilm – youth voices on climate > Communicating climate risk – what works and what doesn’t > Climate risk and tipping points in the polar regions > Green career pathways
Climate Risk Summit, 29 Sep – 1 Oct 2021
Climate Risk Summit, 29 September – 1 October 2021 The Summit provided a forum for discussion of climate risk topics, an opportunity to connect policy, academic and student audiences both nationally and internationally, and an occasion to build further capacity in the community of climate change experts in communicating risk effectively to different audiences. The […]
UKRI COP26 Fellows
Five researchers have been awarded UKRI fellowships to support international climate negotiations ahead of COP26 through the provision and interpretation of scientific evidence. See their fellowship outputs here. This article was originally posted on the PCAN website on 21 October 2021. Dr Rebecca Ford, Strathclyde: ALIGN: Aligning Impacts for Getting to Net Zero Dr Thomas […]