As the world is edging closer to the 1.5 degrees planetary boundary and is failing to adequately cut greenhouse gas emissions, societal actors from all sectors and scales are requested to rapidly devise adequate responses to ensure a liveable future. However, there is a recognised usability gap in climate science, which makes that despite having better quality data, this data is rarely incorporated in policy and planning.

The main objective of CLIMA-GAP is to contribute to narrow the existing climate knowledge-action gap, particularly focusing on how climate services can contribute to address this challenge. The project departs from the initial hypothesis that local narratives hold the potential to shape future adaptation, and therefore, can provide tools to fill the knowledge-action gap.

Building on experiences from different initiatives, the project will map climate change narratives that use climate services for adaptation. A systematically structured database documenting narratives will be developed and shared through an online platform where users will be able to explore the geography of the narratives and contribute with a new narrative, in the spirit of citizen science activities. The analysis of the narratives will serve the climate services and climate adaptation communities to understand contexts and conditions under which climate services flourish as well as the values and features that lead to successful climate adaptation. In addition, the project will co-develop storylines applying a new transdisciplinary approach to explore plausible futures under different levels of global warming. This new approach will involve different academic disciplines and non-academic stakeholders that traditionally have not been engaged in the conversation, to generate creative, bottom-up scenario methods that feature pathways toward a more climate resilient future. Disciplines such as social sciences and communication, cognitive science, behavioural psychology, social network analysis, user experience, and data visualisation among others, will play a key role. Stakeholders will also be involved in the process with the aim of having storylines that are more realistic, actionable and usable.