Managing climate policy information facilitating knowledge transfer to policy makers

Abstract

In the challenging context of intense negotiations and radical developments in the field of climate policy, informing stakeholders about opportunities and pathways and about scientific insights and warnings is important to help create positive dynamics. Policy makers need digestible information to design good policies, and understand their options and the possible impacts of these options. They need access to well-structured knowledge, as well as appropriate techniques to manage information and data. However, available information is often difficult to access, not in the right format and of limited use to stakeholders. The range of knowledge needs identified has to be effectively addressed by providing interested parties with suitable, to-the-point information, covering the identified gaps. This is the main aim of this article that proposes the design and development of a climate policy database, which contains all the resources that can cover the identified knowledge gaps. The resources are derived from a broad range of existing reports, research and climate policy decisions at different levels. The goal is to render climate policy associated stakeholders able to extract key policy conclusions. The added value of this database was verified by users and stakeholders that generally argued that the climate policy database facilitates solid understanding of climate policy implications and fosters collaborative knowledge exchange in the field.