An Irish National Framework for Climate Services

The Problem

In 2018 the Irish government introduced the National Adaptation Framework. This required the Government sectors to produce Sectoral Adaptation Plans. A first attempt at planning adaptation for many of the sectors, leading to an uncoordinated approach across the sectors. Upon review, the process was found to have provided frustration. The limited usability of climate services in the country, the many climate projection models to choose from and the absence of coordinated climate information made it a difficult process fed this frustration. Ireland to yet develop a standardised set of climate projections potentially leading to further difficulties in future decision making.

The Solution

The launch of the TRANSLATE project, led by Met Éireann – The Irish Meteorological Service, set out to translate the vast amount of future climate projections into a format that is useable, transferrable, and understandable. TRASNLATE aimed to do two things: A) develop a set of standardised national climate projections, B) develop climate services in Ireland suitable to the needs of the adaptation community in Ireland.

TRANSLATE was a finite project but opened the conversation around a national approach. It was agreed that climate services needed a more permanent footing to be able to build the required support structure – an operational solution. The Irish ‘National Framework for Climate Services’ (NFCS) gave climate services support a permanent structure to support adaptation.

The Implementation

The success of the TRANSLATE project brought together the climate service national stakeholders, encouraging collaboration, discussion on common problems. Ultimately, it led to an agreement on the required approach to climate service delivery in Ireland.

In June 2022, the National Framework for Climate Services was established after a government decision – tasking Met Éireann to develop and provide coordination for the service.

The NFCS for the first time provides a nationally coordinated approach to climate services in Ireland. Partnering with Ireland’s pre-existing ‘Climate Ireland’ platform to provide the standardised projections through the widely used adaptation portal. This serves as perfect example of how the NFCS will bring together the climate services community.

The NFCS will be a permanent centre for national climate services that will identify the users’ climate information needs, co-develop the tailored product identified and make these freely available. The NFCS aims to help users select and use the appropriate information in their planning and decision making by offering a freely available consultancy service in addition to the provision of climate data.

The NFCS aims to support a wide lens of users, from Government sectors to semi-state and private sectors. Through input from its many contributing organisations, support to the Local Authority in their climate action planning is drastically improved, with a major improvement in support to the Sectoral Adaptation Plans to come.