Climate Services as Public Infrastructure: Lessons from European Research Partnerships

The evolving landscape of climate service provision reveals a fundamental tension between commercial exploitation and equitable public access. This position paper argues for a paradigm shift from purely market-oriented climate services toward a "knowledge commons" approach that balances innovation with universal accessibility. We demonstrate that this approach not only advances climate justice principles but also enhances collective resilience through more democratic governance of climate adaptation.

Current trends in climate services commercialization raise significant concerns about information asymmetry and climate justice. Our experience of climate service provision across multiple national contexts indicates that profit-driven models often result in essential climate information becoming inaccessible to vulnerable stakeholders who lack financial resources. This creates a paradoxical situation where those most exposed to climate risks have the least access to vital adaptation knowledge. Furthermore, the potential privatization of publicly-funded climate research outputs threatens to undermine the social contract between science and society.

We want to clarify that the private sector involvement in climate services brings valuable insider perspectives on market dynamics and incentive structures and enhances the understanding of commercial climate applications. We recognize that innovative applications can flourish alongside equitable data access principles. The private sector creates specialized applications, user interfaces, and sector-specific tools. These specialized products often exceed what government organizations can efficiently produce. Yet such commercial innovations should build upon freely accessible core climate data.

Real-world examples demonstrate the serious consequences of information inequality. The issue of asymmetric information access has been recognized since the early phases of seasonal forecasting distribution (Lemos at al., 2007). In the agricultural insurance sector, research by Carriquiry and Osgood (2012) reveals that farmers with constrained resources and inflexible production systems often cannot adequately adapt their practices when favorable climate conditions arise. Consequently, while premium reductions during favorable seasons appear beneficial on paper, these farmers may lack the capacity to fully capitalize on these opportunities, leaving them in a disadvantaged position overall.

Our analysis suggests that establishing climate services as a tiered system, with guaranteed universal access to core services complemented by specialized commercial offerings, offers a promising approach. Central to our framework is the recognition that climate scientists supported through public funding have an inherent responsibility to ensure their work serves the broader public interest. This does not preclude engagement with private sector applications, but requires thoughtful institutional designs that maintain scientific integrity while preventing exclusive appropriation of knowledge critical for climate adaptation. 

By advocating for more equitable climate service provision, this position paper contributes to both theoretical understandings of knowledge of common governance and practical implementations of climate justice principles. The ultimate goal is to ensure that climate service evolution enhances rather than undermines our collective capacity to address the unprecedented challenges posed by climate change, particularly for those communities who face the greatest exposure with the fewest resources.