Review of 2020 Climate Resilience Ecosystem Workshop

The “Resilience Ecosystem” includes the organizations and individuals who are collectively working to create a climate resilient future in the U.S. The inaugural gathering of leaders in climate resilience happened two years ago in Washington DC, hosted by NOAA, the Climate Resilience Fund, and EcoAdapt.

These gatherings help determine what the climate resilience field needs to move forward. Specifically how the field can become stronger and more capable of delivering the services required as we respond to the changes already underway because of the climate crisis.

This year’s gathering occurred in a series of online sessions, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Participants worked together to identify critical gaps in the field and develop projects that will address those gaps. Through this process, collaborations of organizations can put forward project ideas to the Climate Resilience Fund to receive seed funding. As a requirement of funding, the output of selected projects must be made available to everyone, free of charge.  

Developing a resilience strategy database

As a result of this workshop, the Geos Institute is working with several partners to develop a database of climate resilience strategies. The goal is for communities to be able to search for strategies based on specific vulnerabilities – making it much more efficient to move from planning to implementation.

The database will include information about each solution’s impacts on the environment, efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and how it can improve with regard to social equity. This tool will be especially useful for communities building climate resilience plans through our Climate Ready Communities program, but it will be made available to all at no cost. We are working to have a beta version ready by the end of this year.