Barriers and facilitators for using palaeoclimate evidence in UK climate decision making

Abstract. The impacts of anthropogenic climate change are becoming increasingly severe and the need for more informed policies based on robust and reliable scientific evidence is more critical than ever. Whilst contemporary climate evidence is routinely based on instrumental data, palaeoclimate offers a much longer temporal perspective of the behaviour of the climate system, climate extremes, and environmental responses. Offering in turn a longer-term perspective on how past climate has imposed both costs and opportunities for innovation on human communities and ecosystems. Net Zero policies are just the latest example of how humans are framing their adaption and resilience strategies. Despite the benefits of palaeoclimate insights, there is limited awareness of how palaeoclimate is being used, what barriers are currently limiting the inclusion of palaeoclimate evidence into decision making, and what opportunities are available for palaeoclimate evidence beyond the research community.

In this study we set out to fill this knowledge gap and explore these barriers and facilitators for palaeoclimate integration in decision making. We do this by employing a semi-structured interview approach with policy advisors from UK Civil Service departments and with palaeoclimate scientists to determine their perception of palaeoclimate evidence as a source for policy evidence. The results showed a good agreement between the interviewed policy advisors and palaeoclimate scientists that there is a place for palaeoclimate evidence in decision making, especially with the contextualisation of current and future climate change. However, the results demonstrated that communication was the principal barrier – both the communication format of palaeoclimate dissemination and the communication of the relevance of palaeoclimate for decision making. Other barriers and facilitators are identified and discussed, and we propose four recommendations – policy briefs, transdisciplinary collaboration, policy training and co-production – for palaeoclimate scientists to maximise the potential of using their research in decision making.