The pattern of international links
5.6 The interface between climate science, policy, the economy and society
funders and the researchers themselves. The need for better access to data includes weather station observation and aspects such as hospital intake records, which are often unavailable, incomplete or dispersed across various parts of the health care system.
Careful, extensive and costly data-capture is required before many of the datasets are able to be used. Other data types frequently mentioned as costly or unavailable are climate records and high resolution satellite imagery.
The newly announced DST-funded Research Infrastructures, particularly those for terrestrial and shallow marine (coastal) research, will go a long way toward alleviating these data constraints.
A strong climate modelling capacity, including computing power, storage and band- width, with an African perspective, is a current and future research priority. The over- whelming majority of global circulation models are based in the northern hemisphere (more land than ocean, in contrast to the southern hemisphere, which is predominantly oceanic) and are all focused on the concerns of developed countries, which is politically problematic The advanced modelling capacity acquired by South Africa will need to be further supported in the medium term in order to fully develop and test the models and to analyse the results of the modelling and their implications A better understanding of the decadal timeframe changes and impacts on seasonal weather are key objectives.
Improved forecasting is important form the point of view of predicting seasonal changes that affect agriculture, industry, water availability. The ability of models to provide down- scaled projections is a key requirement for the advancement of climate modelling.
Each sector affected by climate change or which is engaged in mitigation and/or adaptation considerations has their own specific priorities for research in the next five to ten years. The financial and economic implications, drivers and processes of the shift to a low carbon economy is of importance. Other priorities include deeper and more expansive research on the linkages between land, air and ocean systems; shifts in climatic zones; the inter-relationship between climate change, water resources and water security; sustainable urban development and urban resilience; energy and renewable energy systems; agriculture and food security; biodiversity and plant genetics, and the human health implications of climate change. Across this multi-sector range of priorities is the concern that climate science needs to be relevant to the needs of South African
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State of Climate Change Science and Technology
together across research and government institutions. Much of this engaged work is focused on policy support and development. The research councils regularly report research outcomes and progress to standing committees at the provincial and national scale. Research programmes within the science councils in particular, but also in several university-based centres, are designed in consideration of the national development priorities and ministerial mandates. Researchers have major input into global reporting required by South Africa’s commitments to the United Nations and other multinational organisations. There are cases where university-affiliated research centres and national departments cooperate in staff exchanges to build research capacity, foster knowledge sharing and integrate science and governance processes, for example, between the Energy Research Centre and DEA. Not all relationships within and between government and the research community are equally good. At times, differences in the mandates of different national departments create challenges for cross-sectoral researchers who wish to engage across multiple departments.
Notwithstanding the above partial successes, it has been argued that a further step in science-policy engagement needs to take place – notably in the area of regulation as a means of policy implementation.
There are debates regarding the best form of engagement between science and policy in South Africa. Historically, it is evident that the natural sciences have dominated the discourse of climate change from science to policy. The emergence of co-production as an approach to improving the science-policy interface is not supported by all scientists: it is an uncomfortable and unfamiliar mode for many natural scientists. The benefits of co- production in the applied domain, that integrates practitioner, government and science experiences of climate change mitigation and adaptation need to be complemented by traditional research modes in the more fundamental domain. A spectrum of enquiry- driven science to applied science is thus accepted as necessary, but strenuous efforts are needed to keep it seamless and integrated. The growing use of ‘citizen science’ is a further trend. Historically, the long-term weather data in South Africa were collected by volunteer observers. In the present time, much biodiversity data are collected this way.
The science-policy interface should also be considered from the perspective of the receiving environment within the state, the economy and civil society. The capacity of potential users of research to understand, interpret and apply climate science research outputs is critical to the effective use of research in climate change response, including within the area of policy formulation and implementation. Furthermore, the apparent lack of urgency, and the insistence on the research-generating side of the system on ever- more accurate detail rather than fit-for-purpose confidence in the big picture can be frustrating for those in the user environment. They need information quickly, and often a broadly correct answer supplied timeously is much better than a detailed one which is too late. Research outputs in academic publications take time and may not be immediately useful to policymakers. Grey literature and contract-based research reporting are forms of research output more suited to this task, but need to be recognised by the research system as legitimate products. Funding structures and research priorities and capacity need to be aligned for the science-policy interface to work well.