Adaptation to climate change requires, above all, communication and interaction between different disciplines, but also different professions, to the point that it may be necessary to envisage new modes of collective action or new types of occupation. To this end, a continual and iterative transmission process of certainties and uncertainties as well as the development of a community bringing together public and private actors as well as scientists across disciplines is proposed. This exchange could bridge perceptions of climate change and its reality to promote adaptation.
KEY MESSAGES
- AN INTERDISCIPLINARY AND FORWARD-LOOKING SEMINAR
This article synthetizes discussions from the seminar "(In)certitudes et adaptation au climat future" [(Un)certainties and adaptation to the future climate], held from Novembre 17-18, 2014 at Meudon, Paris. This event was organised as part of the SECIF (Vers des services climatiques pour les industries françaises) project [Towards climate services for French industry]. The event brought together various actors (climatologists, sociologists, industrialists, economists, politicians) working from the national to the local levels, with the aim of clarifying the issue of climate uncertainties, in order to facilitate their integration into climate adaptation measures. It also aimed to involve “tomorrow’s actors”—students in climatology, geography, economics, sociology (authors of this article)—in the overall reflection.
- DIFFERENT APPROACHES AND CONSIDERATIONS OF UNCERTAINTY
The treatment of uncertainty (climatic, socio-economic and political) in the adaptation process functions differently depending on the problem being addressed and the actors concerned. To an increasing extent, providing climate services is being seen as a solution to facilitate the integration of increasingly complex scientific information regarding uncertainty. However, the scientific information conveyed to stakeholders and decision-makers still remains detached from the regional context (problems of scale or framing within institutional rationales, etc.), thus reflecting varying conceptions of the issue of uncertainty, which scientists deem unavoidable. This can hamper the credibility and consideration of this information by a large number of actors.
- COMMUNICATION AS A BRIDGE BETWEEN SCIENCE AND POLICY ACTION
The communication of climate data and its uncertainty is thus crucial, but in practice still only in its infancy. The authors are of the view that the most promising way forward would be to form interdisciplinary project-teams (public and private actors, scientists) around a continual and iterative process of sharing outlooks, data and decision-making. This would help to bridge the current disconnect between climate science and public policy, thus helping territorial authorities to support adaptation measures.