The document summarizes a workshop discussion around communicating low-probability, high-impact global risks in the context of the recently released IPCC report. Key points discussed include: translating the IPCC's climate sensitivity language into probability distributions that include potentially catastrophic scenarios; illustrating various risk levels in an indicator tool; focusing risk communication on consequences rather than probabilities for general audiences; and ensuring representation from all interested stakeholders in addressing global challenges. Participants emphasized the importance of further research on low-probability climate risks and other linked global threats.
Anu Jogesh - Media and climate change - representations of risk and uncertaintySTEPS Centre
Workshop on climate change and uncertainty from below and above, Delhi. http://steps-centre.org/2016/blog/climate-change-and-uncertainty-from-above-and-below/
OECD Recommendation on the Governance of Critical RisksOECD Governance
Developed through the OECD High Level Risk Forum (HLRF) of the Public Governance Committee, this recommendation is designed to assist governments, policy makers and senior officials charged with developing and maintaining societal and economic resilience for major shock events and the implementation of robust risk management frameworks.
The Recommendation builds on the unique set of knowledge and best practices collected through the OECD High Level Risk Forum, and complement existing OECD instruments that may be related to various aspects of risk management.
This study developed and conducted a systematic mixed-methods grey literature methodology to characterise and identify climate risk insurance initiative in building resilience in developing countries. The study found that climate risk insurance can help developing countries build resilience against extreme weather events. However, there are barriers to the initiative. This is because of the issue of lack of climate data instruments. The collaboration between the public and private sectors is one way to overcome the challenges of implementing climate risk insurance. This systematic review methodology presents crucial insights on the state-of-the-art knowledge on climate risk insurance and resilience in developing countries
The UNDP is providing travel scholarships for up to 25 people for our upcoming Climate Action Hackathon. This is a huge opportunity! Apply today. https://lnkd.in/eFCaq4q
Big Ideas, Visionaries, Amateur Forecasters and Computer Developers Welcome at UNDP Climate Information for a Resilient Africa Event
What’s It All About
Innovation, out-of-the-box-thinking, big ideas, and smart applications of technology have the potential to significantly impact the way weather information is shared across Africa. And in a world where information is power – and climate change is producing more severe storms and temperature fluctuations that affect vulnerable African communities – access to accurate and timely weather forecasts can work toward reducing poverty, empowering rural communities and saving lives.
With the goal of creating an innovation-driven crowd-sourced space for big thinkers and techno-visionaries to come together, the UNDP’s Programme on Climate Information for Resilient Development in Africa (CIRDA) is inviting developers, mobile application gurus, students and developers to this three-day hackathon and innovations incubator.
The Climate Action Hackathon will run in parallel with a multinational UNDP workshop addressing “The Last Mile: Saving lives, improving livelihoods and increasing resiliency with tailored weather information services for a changing climate.”
Participants will have access to leaders in meteorology, technology, sustainable development and communications. They will work individually or in teams to create mobile applications, technology solutions or data-crunching systems that address Africa’s persistent challenges in adapting to climate change, and sharing early warnings and accurate climate information across the continent.
The Climate Action Hackathon Challenge
• Create prototype mobile and information-system-based applications and technological solutions to share actionable weather and climate information with a variety of stakeholders, sectors and end-users.
• Connect technology with people to bridge the last mile.
• Build scalable systems that react to more frequent storms, increase in lightning, erratic weather patterns and long-term climate change.
• Create technological solutions that are built for Africa and solve local challenges.
• Design and develop next-generation applications to improve on existing systems and methodologies to use climate information and reach end users.
• Leverage existing information, networks and human capacity to seed innovation.
• Communicate existing climate information in an innovative and easy-to-understand manner to catalyze action, improve productivity, save lives and empower end-users.
6th International Disaster and Risk Conference IDRC 2016 Integrative Risk Management - Towards Resilient Cities. 28 August - 01 September 2016 in Davos, Switzerland
Challenges for the Disaster and Crisis Management – Identification of dimensi...Global Risk Forum GRFDavos
Challenges for the Disaster and Crisis Management – Identification of dimensions for the cooperation of governmental and non governmental organisations
Anu Jogesh - Media and climate change - representations of risk and uncertaintySTEPS Centre
Workshop on climate change and uncertainty from below and above, Delhi. http://steps-centre.org/2016/blog/climate-change-and-uncertainty-from-above-and-below/
OECD Recommendation on the Governance of Critical RisksOECD Governance
Developed through the OECD High Level Risk Forum (HLRF) of the Public Governance Committee, this recommendation is designed to assist governments, policy makers and senior officials charged with developing and maintaining societal and economic resilience for major shock events and the implementation of robust risk management frameworks.
The Recommendation builds on the unique set of knowledge and best practices collected through the OECD High Level Risk Forum, and complement existing OECD instruments that may be related to various aspects of risk management.
This study developed and conducted a systematic mixed-methods grey literature methodology to characterise and identify climate risk insurance initiative in building resilience in developing countries. The study found that climate risk insurance can help developing countries build resilience against extreme weather events. However, there are barriers to the initiative. This is because of the issue of lack of climate data instruments. The collaboration between the public and private sectors is one way to overcome the challenges of implementing climate risk insurance. This systematic review methodology presents crucial insights on the state-of-the-art knowledge on climate risk insurance and resilience in developing countries
The UNDP is providing travel scholarships for up to 25 people for our upcoming Climate Action Hackathon. This is a huge opportunity! Apply today. https://lnkd.in/eFCaq4q
Big Ideas, Visionaries, Amateur Forecasters and Computer Developers Welcome at UNDP Climate Information for a Resilient Africa Event
What’s It All About
Innovation, out-of-the-box-thinking, big ideas, and smart applications of technology have the potential to significantly impact the way weather information is shared across Africa. And in a world where information is power – and climate change is producing more severe storms and temperature fluctuations that affect vulnerable African communities – access to accurate and timely weather forecasts can work toward reducing poverty, empowering rural communities and saving lives.
With the goal of creating an innovation-driven crowd-sourced space for big thinkers and techno-visionaries to come together, the UNDP’s Programme on Climate Information for Resilient Development in Africa (CIRDA) is inviting developers, mobile application gurus, students and developers to this three-day hackathon and innovations incubator.
The Climate Action Hackathon will run in parallel with a multinational UNDP workshop addressing “The Last Mile: Saving lives, improving livelihoods and increasing resiliency with tailored weather information services for a changing climate.”
Participants will have access to leaders in meteorology, technology, sustainable development and communications. They will work individually or in teams to create mobile applications, technology solutions or data-crunching systems that address Africa’s persistent challenges in adapting to climate change, and sharing early warnings and accurate climate information across the continent.
The Climate Action Hackathon Challenge
• Create prototype mobile and information-system-based applications and technological solutions to share actionable weather and climate information with a variety of stakeholders, sectors and end-users.
• Connect technology with people to bridge the last mile.
• Build scalable systems that react to more frequent storms, increase in lightning, erratic weather patterns and long-term climate change.
• Create technological solutions that are built for Africa and solve local challenges.
• Design and develop next-generation applications to improve on existing systems and methodologies to use climate information and reach end users.
• Leverage existing information, networks and human capacity to seed innovation.
• Communicate existing climate information in an innovative and easy-to-understand manner to catalyze action, improve productivity, save lives and empower end-users.
6th International Disaster and Risk Conference IDRC 2016 Integrative Risk Management - Towards Resilient Cities. 28 August - 01 September 2016 in Davos, Switzerland
Challenges for the Disaster and Crisis Management – Identification of dimensi...Global Risk Forum GRFDavos
Challenges for the Disaster and Crisis Management – Identification of dimensions for the cooperation of governmental and non governmental organisations
Call for Papers (Extended Abstracts): 5th International Conference of the UNE...Graciela Mariani
The Second call for Papers (Extended Abstracts) for the 5th International Conference of the UNESCO Chair in Technologies for Development has been officially launched.
Tech4Dev 2018, gives you an opportunity to:
Ø Present your research at a unique multidisciplinary Conference focused on innovative technology for social impact in the Global South.
Ø Network across disciplines and fields of technology, to promote the development, deployment, adaptation, and scaling of new solutions for the Global South.
Ø Identify opportunities for collaboration with diverse stakeholders – academics, students, engineers, entrepreneurs, policymakers, practitioners, and social scientists- interested in technological innovation in the Global South.
Ø Participate in the fabulous social event of the conference that will take place in the Lavaux Vineyards, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Ø Build capacity among students and young professionals to engage in multidisciplinary problem solving for social impact.
Tech4Dev 2018 invites researchers, students, practitioners, industry or anyone interested in critical issues in Technologies for Development to submit proposals for Papers (Extended Abstracts). Submissions should emphasize the value of technological innovation while also acknowledging the limits of technology in generating inclusive social and economic development.
Further information, templates and material can be found on the conference website https://cooperation.epfl.ch/Tech4Dev2018.
Effective Crisis Communication
Chapter 10: Risk Communication
Ulmer, R., Sellnow, T., Seeger, M. (2019). Effective Crisis Communication: Moving From Crisis to Opportunity. Sage Publications. Thousand Oaks, CA.
Opportunity #1: Effective Risk Communication (RC) can disrupt a crisis and prevent it from reaching its full magnitude
Important to distinguish between risks and crises
Risk Communication (RC) is future oriented
RC is designed to avert crisis
RC is designed to speculate about what could happen, not explain what did
RC is designed for long term planning vs the immediate problem
RC generally comes from experts foreseeing potential problems versus leaders dealing with a problem.
RC is more personal and internal whereas crisis messages are more public.
RC has the luxury of time with full PR campaigns versus crisis comm that is immediate.
RC can be crafted carefully whereas crisis comm is more spontaneous.
Opportunity #2: A mindful outlook is essential to recognizing new risks
Identifying Risk
Recognizing risk
Learning about it
Prioritizing it
Changing behavior to avoid or mitigate it
Mindfulness – means constantly adapting our perceptual skills to adapt to a changing world
Requires awareness of new information
Requires awareness of different perspectives
High reliability
Preoccupation with failure
Reluctance to simplify operations
Sensitivity to operations
Commitment to resilience
Deference to expertise
Opportunity #3:
Risk Communication must account for both hazard and outrage
Best form of risk communication is interactive
Dialogue should be between all stakeholders who might be affected
Dialogue-centered approach
Democratic and all invited to share opinions
Decisions made for greatest good and greatest number
Technology-centered approach
Experts debate and make recommendations on policy
More efficient – none of us have the time to learn and study all the issues (nor do we want to)
“Experts” – should know more than we do
Loses credibility when the public loses trust in the experts (dishonest, bias, etc.)
Opportunity #3:
Risk Communication must account for both hazard and outrage
Sandman’s Risk/Hazard Equation
Risk f {Hazard+Outrage}
Hazard is the scientifically determined risk level
Outrage is the public’s determination of high risk
If the public perceives high risk, scientists have a hard time convincing them otherwise
If the public doesn’t perceive high risk, scientists have a hard time convincing them otherwise
Opportunity #3:
Risk Communication must account for both hazard and outrage
Dialogue-centered approach takes into consideration public outrage, BUT…
Functions very slowly
Not always based upon fact
Could result in an uninformed public endorsing a risky behavior
Need an interactive compromise approach
Opportunity #4:
To ensure social responsibility, all risk communication should be held to the standard of significant choice
Convergence theory and risk communication
The audience ...
Assar spotlight on communicating climate information - November 2015weADAPT
This time around, our Spotlight focuses on communicating climate information. In it we grapple with increasingly relevant topics, such as which climate messages are most important, which audiences are key and how we can all talk to each other, rather than past each other.
This study was conducted in order to explore alternatives to the catastrophization of the future that freezes people and to identify in other disciplines (medicine, road safety, positive psychology, etc.) new positive levers that could be activated to effect mass-scale sustainable change in lifestyles, consumption, etc. The study was conducted in partnership with IKEA France, ADEME (the national Environmental Protection Agency) and ILEC/Prodimarques (an organization gathering brand manufacturers in food, drink, home and personal care) by the French Observatory specialised in responsible consumption "Mes Courses pour la Planète" (litterally "Shopping for a Better World").
Many experts were interviewed in the frame of this study including : Tal Ben-Shahar, Sally Uren (Forum for the Future), Solitaire Townsend (Futerra).
Similar to Global Risks After the IPCC Report (20)
"The Happy Life - changing behaviours to change the world"
Global Risks After the IPCC Report
1. GLOBAL RISKS AFTER THE IPCC REPORT
New tools and approaches for estimating risk
from low-probability/high-impact events
Notes written by:
Madeleine Enarsson, Dennis Pamlin, Kennette Benedict and Lydia Veliko
Date: 26 August 2013, 9am-5pm
How: Virtual (Skype) or on-site participation
Venue: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the Harris School of Public
Policy University of Chicago, 1155 E. 60th St., Chicago IL
1. Background
IPCCs launch of the Working Group I report will be important for how global risks are discussed
in the near future. It also provides an opportunity to establish new policy strategies to approach
significant (low-probability/high-impact) global risks. The workshop will discuss a proposed
global risk and opportunity indicator to be launched in September 2013, in conjunction with the
release of the first AR5 report. The purpose of the new tool is to help policy makers, business
leaders and the general public to better understand the significance of low-probability/high-impact
global risks.
2. Goal
The goal of the workshop was to discuss the following topics:
1. Ways that significant low-probability/high-impact global risks can be integrated into policy
making
2. Translating IPCC language about climate sensitivity into numbers that estimate the
probability for different degrees of warming based on different PPM projections
3. Communicating low-probability/high-impact outcomes. For example, how can relatively
small changes in absolute risk be communicated when media focus is on relative changes?
How can different kinds of risk be communicated to the public (e.g. dangerous climate
change, 2C; and ruin/existential/deadly climate change, >4-8C)?
4. Communicating significant global risks in ways that inspire action to manage the risks,
rather than despair leading to inaction
5. Further work to clarify and communicate how different global risks are linked (nuclear
war, pandemics, climate change, etc.)
3. Specific questions
1. How can IPCC’s language about climate sensitivity be translated into a probability
distribution that includes low-probability/high-impact scenarios that can be used by policy
makers and business leaders as well as understood by the general public?
globalchallengesfoundation.org/
Global
Challenges
Foundation
2. 2. Based on the different ways to translate IPCC language into probability numbers
(especially low-probability/high-impact), what is the best way to combine and illustrate
these in an indicator?
3. What are the best ways to communicate low-probability/high-impact outcomes? For
example, how can relatively small changes in absolute risk be communicated when media
focus is on relative changes? How can different kinds of risk be communicated (e.g.
dangerous climate change, 2C; and ruin/existential/deadly climate change, >4-8C)?
4. How can communication about significant global risks inspire action rather than lead to
despair and inaction? Who is credible in providing the information in a way that inspires
this change?
4. Key conclusions from the workshop*
• There are many audiences for messages about climate change: political leaders and
policymakers; financial decsionmakers; corporate leaders; environmental groups; civic
groups; general public. Each of these audiences resonates to different messages, and
perhaps, different ways of portraying risk.
• Low-probability (below 1%)/high-impact events are not currently adequately studied
either among research institutions or among relevant governmental bodies.
• It is important to support research and policy work that studies low-probability/high-
impact events, especially events with potential catastrophic outcomes.
• The language about risk is different across disciplines, creating misunderstanding and
confusion among policy makers and media. For example, it is common among climate
scientists to talk about “conservative” estimates and provide estimations in which
uncertainties are excluded, while insurance experts use “conservative” when they wish to
indicate that worst-case scenarios are also included. In the first case the risk is
underestimated, in the second the full risk is included.
• Many policy makers ask for certainty from scientists even when scientific certainty is not
possible. It is important to educate policy makers about decision-making under conditions
that do not allow for scientific certainty.
• Communicating extreme risks in a meaningful and ethical way to the all stakeholders poses
great challenges, but is very important. Most current risk communication relates to more
marginal risks with a focus on “the general public.”
• Key target groups for communication about extreme risks are policy makers and
corporations. Communication should always take account of different national and sub-
national contexts. In order to avoid “doom and gloom,” heroes with 21st
century solutions
and champions inside the relevant companies could be considered part of the message and
strategy.
• Some studies indicate that many people have a low sensitivity to probability. This means
that for certain topics, people tend to treat different probability numbers more or less the
same, especially when the probability is low. Therefore, when communicating low-
probability/high-impact risks to the general population, one should consider a focus
3. primarily on the potential consequences, rather than on the probability. These
consequences would include food shortages (and rising food prices), wildfires and storms
that damage homes, increasing insurance prices, flooding of subway systems (like New
York City after hurricane Sandy.
• For communicating risk to the actual decision makers, however, a full risk assessment is
obviously important.
• When discussing climate sensitivity it is very important to be sure that the whole
probability distribution is included, especially as a fat tail cannot be excluded (including
sensitivity of 4-5°C and above). Despite the potential fatal consequences of such
sensitivity, very little research or concrete action occurs.
• The fact that many important elements (such as methane release from the tundra/Arctic,
forest feedback and albedo) are not included in the models that provide the climate
sensitivity makes it important to communicate to policy makers that such models can
significantly underestimate the probability for extreme climate change.
• Financial analytical tools and instruments can be very useful in addressing global risks.
From a financial perspective, an increase in uncertainty means increased action, such as
higher premium (while we react in the opposite way about issues concerning the climate).
Financial markets also have the ability to distil information in ways that are useful for
climate risk assessment.
• In addition to concrete numbers, visualization can be a powerful tool to evoke emotions,
motivate people and convey action. In that way, a global risk and opportunity indicator can
be an effective tool since it makes it possible to see easily what the risks are for various
temperature increases at various greenhouse gas concentrations. Likewise the solutions can
benefit from illustrations. For example, telling stories about heroes who are pursuing
solutions is appealing to those looking for positive models of what can be done. Likewise,
a contest could be created to develop relevant and compelling images for global risks and
opportunities. A core question is how, and even whether, existential risks, such as the “end
of civilization” when nothing is left, can be depicted.
• National security usually trumps action against global risks. The link between global risks
and local well-being must be clarified in order to achieve a good understanding of the
impact of global risks at the local level, thereby spurring collective action against those
affected.
• Any action regarding global risks should include representatives from all interested
countries and stakeholders. Many initiatives and communication strategies only focus on
OECD/Western countries.
• Very little has been done to analyse links between global risks even if clear and important
links exists. More work should be done in this area.
4. 5. Participants
• John Balkcom Chair of the Governing Board, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
• Kennette Benedict Executive Director, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
• Oliver Bettis Chairman of the UK Actuarial Profession's Resource &
Environment Group
• Madeleine Enarsson Founder and consultant, TransformativeME
, Catalyst, 21st
Century
Frontiers
• Baruch Fischhoff Professor in the Departments of Social and Decision Sciences and
of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University
• Molly Jahn Professor in the Laboratory of Genetics and Department of
Agronomy, Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment,
University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Gavin Maguire Agriculture Markets columnist for Thomson Reuters' Chicago
bureau
• Jason Matheny Program Manager at the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects
Activity, IARPA (participated via Skype)
• Robert Michael Professor Emeritus, Harris School of Public Policy, University of
Chicago
• Dennis Pamlin Project manager, Global Challenges Foundation
• Robert Rosner Professor in the departments of Astronomy & Astrophysics and
Physics at the University of Chicago and co-director of the Energy
Policy Institute at Chicago
• Paul Slovic President of Decision Research and professor of psychology at
the University of Oregon
*These do not necessarily represent a consensus among participants