What Climate Change Means for Local Communities and Beyond
Introduction
The news often reports about climate change, rising occurrences of natural disasters, global emissions, and reducing CO2 for the generations to come. We hear about policy and the endless debates, agreements, and goals set by the world’s greatest Green House Gas (GHG) emitters. But what does that mean on a localized level? What does climate change really look like for people like you and me? With all the devastating natural disasters each and every year, why haven’t we come up with better solutions to help the people and communities that face them? What are the best, and worst, possibilities for our shared future? How can we adapt to our ever-changing climate?
While these are complicated questions accompanied by equally complicated answers, one of the most essential pieces of these conversations – before actions, policy, or changes on the ground can be made – is one small, very powerful, four letter word: data. In order to make informed decisions, people need data. They also need common data, so that they are able to make decisions based on the same, centralized and trusted information.
That’s why the DIRECTED Project, part of the Horizons Europe 2020 initiative, has developed the Data Fabric, which has just been launched as version 1. It is an interactive, centralized, web-based platform hosting a multitude of modeled climate data, designed by, and for, the people that live and work in the participating Real World Labs.