CLARA’s third Multi-User Forum Workshop took place at NH Laguna Palace Hotel in Venice on 3-4 October 2019. The meeting aimed to identify and address the barriers and enablers to the implementation of the climate services developed within the project, and included 60 participants from different organizations such as public administrations, civil protection agencies and commercial enterprises.

H2020 CLARA Project (Climate Forecasts Enabled Knowledge Services) was created to develop climate services able to translate climate information into climate knowledge, thus helping local decision-makers to take informed and science-based decisions on climate adaptation issues. To achieve this aim, the project team has set up a Multi-User Forum (MUF) that facilitates the dialogue with the many and different intended users of the climate services developed.

The MUF journey started in Stockholm last year with a first workshop that focused on the meaning and value of seasonal and sub-seasonal forecasts for users (March 2018); the second appointment in Cordoba (November 2018) focused on co-development: how users and providers can work together to maximize the impact of climate services. This third and last MUF in Venice has been devoted to the final and most exciting phase of climate services development: business plans and marketing strategies. Current strategies were revised and barriers to implementation were identified and analyzed in their social and economics dimensions through a series of innovative and interacting settings.

This series of MUFs has proved to be quite successful and its outcomes extremely valuable for advancing action on climate change. As project coordinator Jaroslav Mysiak said, “climate services will play a crucial role in the new Green Deal that will be released in November 2019 to set the priorities of the European Commission towards climate action: they will help decision makers to deliver on promises and pledges for climate adaptation and to push forward the transformational shift needed. Climate services are the enablers of a better climate adaptation in Europe”.