Serious disruptions and exceptional circumstances for society, that the society tries to prepare for and act in them are at the center of security of supply. Current examples are the COVID pandemic and the ongoing energy crisis for which Finland's security of supply has also been strongly highlighted. Disturbances can also be caused by weather phenomena: in Finland, such examples are windstorms, severe thunderstorms, floods, and droughts, which can, at least in principle, paralyze the society. It is possible to prepare for the impacts of weather phenomena, but the ongoing rapid climate change makes it more complicated. Some of the weather phenomena that cause impacts are fast and violent (e.g. intense thunderstorms) and some occur more slowly (e.g. long heat waves), and climate change affects the phenomena in different ways. In this work, the estimated impacts of climate change on Finland's security of supply were investigated. The starting point was to gain an understanding of which weather phenomena and weather situations are central to security of supply and which sectors of security of supply are the most vulnerable. The work constituted of workshops and expert interviews organized with the National Emergency Supply Agency. In addition to the interviews, the work covered past significant weather situations in Finland that are known to have had significant societal impacts. Information was also extracted from recent literature, especially regarding the vulnerabilities and adaptability of different sectors in Finland. Estimates of the climate change impacts on the identified phenomena were combined with the collected information, resulting in a first understanding of how climate change affects Finland's security of supply. Based on the results, it can be concluded that the impacts of climate change on security of supply are quite complex, especially due to the wide spectrum of weather phenomena and their different impact mechanisms. In addition, the matter becomes more complicated by the fact that there is no clear distinction of what weather phenomenon actually is critical to security of supply and what is not. For example, could the increasing adverse impacts on health care due to the increasingly common heat conditions reach a serious societal disturbance situation at some point, if it is not sufficiently prepared in advance? Another key result is that in terms of security of supply, the direct effects of climate change are very small in Finland compared to many other countries. Although the climate in Finland has already changed considerably and will continue to change in the future, the biggest impacts to security of supply seem to be reflected from elsewhere: the experts of the National Emergency Supply Agency consider the worst situation to be a lack of food, water and habitable living environment in the world, which would also be reflected to Finland. Among the sectors, food/water and energy supply and logistics are perceived as the most vulnerable. The work mainly focused on the direct effects of climate change, i.e. the effects of climate change on the occurrence of various weather phenomena. However, the work also considers to some extent indirect effects, i.e. those reflected from other parts of the world, and transitional effects that result from climate change mitigation measures, especially from the rapid energy transition.
Climate change adaptation actions are vital in cities to prepare and adapt to advancing climate change, especially rapidly changing probabilities of extreme weather events. Although especially in Europe many cities have generated adaptation and climate risk management plans and improved decision-support also with respect to weather and climate risks, there is still much to do. Often, risk management actions are strongly activated only after experiencing negative impacts, for example, related to a severe flood causing substantial damages or even losses of lives. In a perfect world, however, in risk management all potential risks should be considered already beforehand, and either adapt to them or at least acknowledge these possible risks. To support the Finnish cities’ preparedness for possible, yet not previously observed extreme weather events, the project LONGRISK designed a decision platform for strategic risk management, which generated an extensive dialogue between decision-makers and experts in three Finnish pilot cities (Helsinki, Tampere, Kotka). One of the main objectives of the project was to generate a “climate risk monitoring Dashboard” that demonstrates possible near-future extreme weather episodes and their impacts. More specifically, the Dashboard consisted of the synthetic reposition of the Copenhagen 2011 extreme cloudburst over each pilot city including the simulated flood impacts. The Dashboard was a key tool in persuading city policymakers representing also the highest decision level (e.g. the Mayor) to engage in a Situation Room exercise, i.e., an internal dialogue especially on the possible gaps in their present adaptation level and chain of communication and decision-making. As a result, and especially due to the intensive internal dialogue, the decision-makers recognized their main vulnerabilities and weaknesses and generated a list of action items for further development. This study presents the overall procedure of generating the Dashboard and running the Situation Rooms. Also, we present the method for generating the synthetic extreme weather events, such as the repositioned Copenhagen cloudburst and related urban flood simulations that are congruent with the climatological statistics and with CMIP6 climate projections.
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