News

ESMAP hosted a Brown Bag Lunch on March 23, 2010 at the World Bank in Washington DC to discuss outcomes from the October 2008 NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Weather and Climate Risk Management for the Energy Sector that brought together 28 weather and climate scientists, energy experts, institutional specialists and economists to discuss ways to progress the above issues. 

Twenty papers were presented at the 2008 workshop, and were subsequently published in a book, that set the scene for the discussion aimed to accomplish the five objectives of the workshop:

 Identify vulnerabilities of the energy sector to extreme weather events;
 Identify impediments to the use of weather and climate information for the energy sector;
 Suggest ways to improve and facilitate the transfer of knowledge between weather/climate scientists and energy experts to optimize climate risk management;
 Outline proposals to improve the way weather/climate information is used for modeling demand as well as providing warnings for potential disruptions in  energy operations and infrastructure;
 Discuss possible contributions of weather/climate scientists and energy experts to climate change adaptation policies for energy security.

Alberto Troccoli, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Australia who led the NATO event, and Mohammed Boulahya, ClimDevConsult, Africa and John Furlow USAID Climate Change Team, who contributed to these discussions, were invited by ESMAP to present the key messages emerging from these discussions, some of the outcomes of the workshop and suggestions for further steps to support developing countries in managing weather/ climate risks in the energy sector.

Troccoli and Boulahya jointly presented on several workshop recommendations that included addressing and examining vulnerabilities to the energy sector of weather events, using guidelines, technology and they highlighted in particular, building partnerships for greater understanding of the potential collaboration that can take place between the climate science communities and energy sector. Boulahya additionally discussed a best practice example from the aviation industry.

Furlow discussed USAID on the ground actions in Central America, echoing what his colleagues said on the need to forge better exchange between the two communities of climate scientist and the energy sector. Furlow showcased various information technologies that USAID is employing for climate risk management which recently had specific relevance and use in the January 2010 Haiti earthquake crisis. World Bank discussants, Missfeldt-Ringius and Alejandro Deeb discussed the ability to operationalize these recommendations to make it relevant for the task teams and client countries, underlining the key points of the presentation that collaboration and integration also come with a cost both in terms of finances and human capacity. It was suggested that making the business case for climate risk management should be made to understand how it can best fit into the energy sector and lending portfolio.

As a practical step forward, ESMAP has recently teamed up with the World Bank Global Expert Team on Climate Adaptation to begin initial research on a White Paper - “Climate-resiliency in Energy Systems” – together with a number of external experts and organizations. The work is in line with the findings and outcome of the workshop by bringing together climate scientists, energy experts and the World Bank expert team to allow for collaboration between expertise and areas of knowledge. With this initial collaboration, ESMAP intends to continue to take critical steps to building bridges between the climate and energy communities in ways that can produce outcomes for our clients