Games for a new climate: experiencing the complexity of future risks

This repository item contains a single issue of the Pardee Center Task Force Reports, a publication series that began publishing in 2009 by the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future.This report is a product of the Pardee Center Task Force on Games for a New Climate, which met at Pardee House at Boston University in March 2012. The 12-member Task Force was convened on behalf of the Pardee Center by Visiting Research Fellow Pablo Suarez in collaboration with the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre to “explore the potential of participatory, game-based processes for accelerating learning, fostering dialogue, and promoting action through real-world decisions affecting the longer-range future, with an emphasis on humanitarian and development work, particularly involving climate risk management.” Compiled and edited by Janot Mendler de Suarez, Pablo Suarez and Carina Bachofen, the report includes contributions from all of the Task Force members and provides a detailed exploration of the current and potential ways in which games can be used to help a variety of stakeholders – including subsistence farmers, humanitarian workers, scientists, policymakers, and donors – to both understand and experience the difficulty and risks involved related to decision-making in a complex and uncertain future. The dozen Task Force experts who contributed to the report represent academic institutions, humanitarian organization, other non-governmental organizations, and game design firms with backgrounds ranging from climate modeling and anthropology to community-level disaster management and national and global policymaking as well as game design.Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centr

Games ready to use: A serious game for teaching natural risk management

International audienceRisk management has become an essential skill for civil engineers. Teaching risk management to engineering students is therefore crucial, but is also challenging: it looks too abstract to students, and practical works are complex and expensive to organise. It also involves interconnected mechanisms coupling human and technical aspects, that are difficult to explain. In order to support risk management teaching, we propose SPRITE, an agent-based serious game using a concrete case study which is exemplary in terms of risk management: the coastal floods on the Oleron Island (France). SPRITE places the player (student) in the role of a local councillor of the Oleron Island, who must ensure the safety and well-being of the island residents, while maximising performance w.r.t. economic and environmental issues, in a context of coastal flood risk. SPRITE is the central piece of a pedagogical sequence which is actually used in risk management courses at Bordeaux University. This paper describes the SPRITE serious game and the underlying agent-based model, and reports on some lessons learnt from its use in a risk management course

Climate change adaptation in the boardroom

Abstract Climate adaptation is recognised by many of the world’s largest businesses as a global risk and one that requires critical attention. The World Economic Forum’s 2013 Global Risks Perception Survey, identified the ‘failure of climate change adaptation and rising greenhouse gas emissions as among those global risks considered to be the most likely to materialize within a decade’ (p.16). Yet despite action by many transnationals and international firms, it seems evident that most Australian companies appear to be struggling to move forward in responding to climate change impacts, apparently paralysed by short-term profit-first thinking, uncertain political risks and a corporate culture unused to volatility and disruption. Research approach This project set out to communicate adaptation to climate change to the “big end of town” and to gather soft data, acquire information and present issues back to the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF), the funder of this research. Our approach to the research challenge differed from a traditional technical, analytical or academic method. We used action-learning principles to engage a community in which we, as advisors to corporate Australia and as co-researchers, have social capital and standing. Through trusted information sharing networks, private closed-door meetings and one on one conversation with executives and senior management from over 100 companies we shared ideas, gathered, researched and refined information and tested our findings. Findings Our findings from the boardroom engagement include the following:   The Australian Government expects the private sector to adapt, yet little or no incentives exist to promote this behaviour. Autonomous adaptation as practiced may only benefit the lead actor while creating disbenefit for others (including other corporations, society and the environment). Market practices on current paradigms cannot be expected to meet greater societal adaptation needs. Further adaptation research is required in some areas to help guide shape and monitor adaptation for the private sector. A multiplicity of policy reform may be necessary, but crafting and implementing it is likely to remain beyond the capability of the Australian Public Service (APS) or individual Governments. Highly sophisticated mining, gas and some Asian owned technology companies are leading the way with many opportunities missed by Australian companies. Adaptation for the corporate sector is a key strategic issue, unlike mitigation and corporate social responsibility (CSR), as it benefits the corporate primarily. Insurance dependency may only be a short-term risk transfer mechanism as, in its current paradigm, it can mask risk, create a false sense of security and may impede adaptation.   Conclusion We hope that this report is of benefit to Australian organisations, policy makers, regulators and to researchers in adaptation science. This project shows that, on a whole, the Australian private sector is giving little consideration about the impacts climate change. This project has identified that considerable research gaps exist, but has also provided direction for organisations and researchers. Individual corporations and private sector peak bodies urgently need to explore the risks and opportunities that climate change and associated responses bring. This is especially so for the ICT, aviation, energy, insurance and finance sectors. Please cite this report as: Johnston, GS, Burton, DL, Baker-Jones, M, 2013 Climate Change Adaptation in the Boardroom National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, Gold Coast. pp. 81

Insurance-related instruments for disaster risk reduction (2011 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction)

Strategies and measures for disaster risk reduction (DRR) are not being implemented at the scale called for by the Hyogo Framework of Action. Part of the problem is that, from the perspective of decision makers with resource constraints, it is risky to invest in something that reaps benefits only in the case of a relatively unlikely event (such as a hurricane or a drought). People and institutions are understandably prone to invest in choices that yield less uncertain benefits. DRR, in itself, can be perceived as a risky endeavor - especially from the financial perspective. One way to circumvent this problem is by promoting DRR through incentives and other features embedded in market-based financial instruments, which offer financial stability or reliable access to funds to help cope with the consequences of extreme events. Since not all risks can be cost-effectively reduced, especially those that occur only very rarely, forward-thinking DRR stakeholders tend to seek options for financing the remaining or residual risks. Insurance and other disaster risk sharing approaches can serve households, national governments and humanitarian or development organizations, not only to complement ex ante DRR by ensuring or accelerating financing for post-disaster activities (like relief, recovery and reconstruction), but also as a conduit for ex ante DRR, guiding investment decisions that would result in fewer losses if a disaster materializes in the future. The objective of this paper is to assist disaster risk reduction stakeholders analyze whether - and how - insurance and other market-based risk transfer instruments can help increase resilience to disasters

The art of streamflow forecasting over Europe

While floods are among the most damaging natural hazards, they have helped shape human developments over the last millennia, fostering scientific understanding and technological advances in an attempt for their mitigation. We now more skilfully predict floods at increasing lead times, through probabilistic hydro-meteorological forecasting. But we are now facing new challenges. Have we reached the limits of predictability with seasonal streamflow forecasting? This thesis contributed to the implementation and design of operational seasonal streamflow outlooks, as part of the European and the Global Flood Awareness Systems. Openly available, they give users an overview of potential streamflow changes on sub-seasonal to seasonal timescales. The analysis of both systems highlighted current limits in seasonal predictability and the importance of initial hydrological conditions and the land surface memory. To tackle these limits of predictability, a sensitivity analysis was developed to guide developments for tangible future seasonal streamflow forecast improvements. Are technical and scientific advances increasing faster than the rate at which forecasts are usable for decision-making? As shown by the application of serious games and research interviews at the Environment Agency (to guide a successful transition to probabilistic forecasts for flood early warning in England), science (e.g. forecast skill) is not necessarily a limiting factor for decision-making. Improved communication between scientists and decision-makers, aimed for instance at understanding the complex landscape in which decision-makers operate, is key to a successful adoption of the latest science in practice. Art can help bridge the communication gap, and this thesis culminated in an art exhibition, ‘Gambling with floods?’, at The Museum of English Rural Life (Reading, UK) from 1 to 15 November 2019, created to reach a wide audience. Overall, this thesis has shown that a closer interaction between decision-makers, scientists and artists is urgently needed for a co-leadership on improving science for society

Rethinking financial instruments: The case study of floods in Nepal

Index-based insurance is often discussed in the literature as one of the innovative financial instruments for micro-insurance. Ongoing research has shown that concerns remain about the demand for index insurance in low and middle-income countries. In Nepal, recent literature has demonstrated that the demand for crops is low, that index-based insurance products for specic crops should be piloted and that farmers' willingness to participate should be assessed. This thesis explores the factors that affect smallholder farmers' demand for hypothetical index-based flood insurance (IBFI) for crops in Nepal. The study employs a mixed-methods approach including an index-based insurance game and brings empirical quantitative and qualitative evidence from flood exposed areas in the lowlands of the Karnali River basin. Three common factors were identied and are most likely to infuence farmers' decisions for potential IBFI; i) the basis risk ii) education and iii) recent weather conditions. However, non-common factors identified by the qualitative approach indicated that practical implementations (such as distance to insurance provider) should also be taken into consideration when piloting future activities for potential index-based insurance products to minimise the risks and increase participation. Employing a mixed-methods approach was proved to be valuable to expand the research around application of IBFI but also to provide a foundation for potential policy and practical implementation