LC-CLA-05-2019 CoP: Human dynamics of climate change - Climate services for Africa Scope: Actions should exploit new, relevant climate data made available by Copernicus and other relevant sources (such as GEOSS) and create dedicated climate services for Africa for at least two of the following sectors: water, energy, land use, food security, health and infrastructure. Actions should develop and deliver tools/applications which demonstrate clear end-user engagement, consultation and participation, and which enhance planning and implementation of climate adaptation strategies in Africa. Actions should consider activities addressed by other initiatives such as the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS), Copernicus, development cooperation activities, provide added value. Expected impacts: better policy making for climate adaptation in partner countries and Europe; supporting international science (IPCC …); stronger adaptive capacity and climate resilience. ------------------------------------------------ UK METOFFICE COMPONENT Africa has experienced economic growth of more than 5 percent per annum during the past decade, but to sustain this growth, investment in infrastructure is fundamental. In recognition of this fact, the Program for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA), endorsed in 2012 by the continent’s heads of state and government, has laid out an ambitious, long-term plan for closing Africa’s infrastructure gap. In the water and energy sector, PIDA calls for an expansion of hydroelectric power generation capacity by more than 54,000 MW and of water storage capacity by 20,000 cubic km. Much of these investments will support the construction of long-lived infrastructure (e.g., dams, power stations, and irrigation canals), which will either be vulnerable to or not optimally designed for the future changing climate. High-quality climate information is thus essential to ensure (i) the resilience of existing infrastructures by developing adequate building design standards, operating procedures, (ii) better planning decisions about how to invest in new assets to reduce vulnerability and (iii) that these assets deliver increased climate resilience for communities. Indeed, significant changes are already observed in West Africa (Barry et al. 2018) and future climate projections suggest further increases in temperature in the range of 1 to 2 degrees Celsius by 2050 on average and often much more for extremes. Furthermore, precipitation projections vary widely by location and time period (Heinzeller et al. 2018) and this large range of plausible future climates represent a strong challenge for a region with a low capacity to adapt. Decision-making timescale of 2 to 10 or up to 30 years are strategic for policy and infrastructure planning. However, there is a lack of available climate information at these timescales because the research and services based on climate scenarios are not yet well developed (Wiser, 2018). Indeed, most of the on-going projects focus on working with governments on short- term to seasonal forecasting for agriculture and disaster risk management (Vaughan et al. 2018). Continuing efforts to increase the realism and reliability of regional climate projections (Heinzeller et al. 2018; Stratton et al. 2018; Haarsma et al. 2016), provide an opportunity to also focus on the longer term perspective. Factoring this long-term climate information into investments and planning decisions in West Africa is an important component of a climate-resilient agriculture development but also of less explored sectors such as infrastructure and energy. For example, in energy, hydropower is very weather sensitive and although more than 50% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s hydropower potential is still untapped (Kabo-bah and Mensah 2018) it still represents about 20% of the total electricity supply in this region with many projects currently underway (Kling 2017; EIB, 2018). In this project, we thus propose to focus on using regional climate projections in collaboration with stakeholders and decision-makers in the energy, water and infrastructure sectors in West Africa (Ghana, Nigeria). In this region, we would be able to capitalize on our presence in-country and on- going projects (AMMA-2050, SWIFT, ASPIRE, CREWS, BRACED) to define relevant climate metrics with our industry and governmental partners. In addition, in this region, we would build up on a range of freshly available high-resolution regional climate model data (IMPALA, WASCAL, PRIMAVERA) to complement and add value to existing CORDEX-Africa and CMIP datasets through the expertise within our consortium to derive the most appropriate climate information for the various stakeholders in the relevant sectors (James at el. 2015). This future climate information would be integrated in an existing climate change risk assessment tool developed for the European energy sector via the Copernicus Clim4energy project (Fournier et al. 2018). We would then undertake some cost benefit analysis with our industry partners (Steele et al. 2017). This would gather information on the cost of infrastructure design, damage or operations downtime due to extreme events such as flooding, drought, heatwave or squall. For example, we would investigate how the future expected rainfall could disrupt electricity supply by flooding power/LNG plants or reducing hydropower production especially in countries such as Ghana where it dominates the energy mix. We would derive guidelines for using (1) the tool and (2) climate projections for infrastructure design and energy resources planning. In addition, in 2015, a World Bank Group report warned that the impact of climate change on Africa’s water and energy infrastructure would “be costly” and, in 2018, the head of the African Bank Development, Akinwumi Adesina, urged the UN to join him in supporting the Green Climate Fund and the Global Environment Facility to step up support to climate risk insurance for vulnerable African countries. Therefore, based on our most recent climate projections, we will investigate with the insurance sector the adequateness of existing products to (1) build resilience to natural hazards and (2) promote climate change risk awareness in West Africa for specific infrastructures based on our experience in Europe gained through the Copernicus WISC project. Indeed, a number of factors affect the ability to develop and price insurance products for assets and infrastructure exposed to the risk of climate change. As well as the frequency and severity of natural disasters, there are issues such as rapidly expanding populations or higher concentrations of assets in hazard prone areas. Existing infrastructure, built without consideration of climate risks, may also become harder to insure. These factors are important for policy makers and the insurance industry to consider when developing a specific insurance product and other measures to manage climate change for an infrastructure. ------------------------------------------------------------------- ACADEMIC PARTNERS: . GMet INDUSTRY / END-USERS PARTNERS: . Infrastructure: Beazley (insurance), EIB (finance, TBC), NADMO (Ghana gvt, TBC) . Energy: Volta River Authority (Ghana, TBC), Shell International and Shell Nigeria SECTORS: ENERGY, INFRASTRUTURE DATA SOURCES: RCM simulations from PRIMAVERA, AMMA-2050, IMPALA, WASCAL PRODUCTS/METRICS: future mean and extreme of rain, temperature and wind FOCUS COUNTRIES: West Africa – Ghana and Nigeria COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS: Ghana Okasombo dam and Nigeria LNG project ------------------------------------------------------------------- ACTIVITIES: . Development of sector specific climate metrics with end-users based on results from on-going projects such as AMMA-2050. Characterisation of current application of climate information in their decision making and evaluation of cost of no-use or using inadequate data to support operations long-term planning and design . Analyse, evaluate at a process level, quantify uncertainties and compare the available RCM data over selected countries of West Africa. Make use of tools derived from the H2020 PRIMAVERA project to assess the representation of the physics and statistics of meteorological extreme events and associated effects . Select and combine the most appropriate climate projections to derive the sector specific climate metrics defined with end-users based on the methodologies from HyCRISTAL . Integration of this climate data within the Met Office climate risk assessment tool (C3S Clim4energy). Adaptation of the tool over the West Africa region and implementation on C3S or ACMAD platform . Climate tool application for developing some cost benefit analysis with end users based on approach from on-going projects such as H2020 SECLI-FIRM . Development of technical guides for the climate tool and on the integration of climate projections in the design of infrastructure and planning of energy/water resources . Evaluation and development of fit-for-purpose insurance products with insurance sector and local government (i.e. NADMO, Ghana) for energy infrastructures based on existing initiatives of the World Bank, Lloyd’s, the Green Climate Fund and the Copernicus C3S WISC project