Fiona's Red Kite has won a contract to deliver climate change advice to the BBC World Service Trust. The Trust is the BBC's international charity funded by external grants and voluntary contributions. It also receives a small amount of core support from the BBC in cash and in kind. It uses media and communications to reduce poverty and promote human rights, thereby enabling people to build better lives. This project aims to increase responses and improve resilience to climate change in Asia. Fiona is helping the Trust understand the scientific evidence for the impacts of climate change in seven Asian countries: Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan and Vietnam. The science is being used to design approaches to public perception surveys that can be used to target communication on climate change. Evidence has been drawn from the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report and more recent work on ocean acidification and cross-border vulnerability. Focusing on future climate risks in which science demonstrates the highest confidence, 10 key areas have been identified and are being used to structure the project plans. Back to top of page

The UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change commissioned the Met Office Hadley Centre to write briefings on the impacts of climate change on twenty or so countries in preparation for the intergovernmental Conference of the Parties meeting in Durban. The Hadley Centre called on Fiona's Red Kite to conduct scientific editing of these briefings in response to comments from regional reviewers. Detailed knowledge of IPCC AR4 was required, and the ability to assess more recent science, as well as an understanding of the role and limitations of science in climate change adaptation policy-making.
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Fiona's Red Kite worked with global environmental consulting firm ERM to provide advice on the impacts of climate change on power generation sites in south-east Asia for China Light and Power. Scientific evidence from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was used to assess climate risks to plants such as vulnerability to sea-level rise, availability of river water for cooling and temperature dependence of operating efficiency. Back to top of page

Fiona's Red Kite delivered policy briefings and stakeholder engagement activities for the £23M QUEST research programme. QUEST refers to "Quantifying Earth system processes and feedbacks for better informed assessments of alternative futures of the global environment". This National Environment Research Council programme produced results in a wide range of earth system science areas including: Land Use, Bioenergy, Forestry and Mitigation; Climate Impacts; Biogeochemical Feedbacks; Carbon Cycle Feedbacks; The Rules of Fire; Large and Rapid Climate Change; Data Synthesis; and, the QUEST Earth System Model.

Fiona's work helped policy-makers understand and apply science for intergovernmental climate change meetings. Fiona was an organiser of the Earth System Science conference in Edinburgh in 2010. The conference brought QUEST's pioneering approaches to integrated science to an international audience of scientists and stakeholders. She supported the QUEST research programme core team by providing expert opinion on scientific issues of climate modelling and meteorology. She used her contact networks and stakeholder engagement experience to support and guide liaison across many sectors including UK government departments and devolved administrations, and insurance. She wrote ministerial briefings, and leaflets targeted at policy-makers and decision-takers. She was an organiser and facilitator at the dynamic and informative QUEST finale event in Westminster in 2010. Leaflets on the QUEST programme outputs can be downloaded from the NERC QUEST finale event page.

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UK national organisations facing the challenge of climate change and weather impacts seek professional guidance to support evidence-based decision making, strategic planning, business planning and awareness raising within their organisations and with their stakeholders. Knowledge exchange activitities between scientists and organisations enable these organisations to influence scientific research programmes and better understand climate risks and opportunities.

Fiona has delivered a project on Climate Change and Social Justice for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a charity aiming to understand the causes of social disadvantage in the UK, to identify ways of overcoming them and demonstrate practical solutions.  Fiona was able to respond quickly to its request for an overview paper, and to facilitate a workshop with key stakeholders.  Her work has been used to design an innovative climate change research programme. Back to top of page

Fiona managed the Royal Meteorological Society’s contribution to the Overlay Journal Infrastructure for Meteorological Sciences (OJIMS) project. Her main role was the development of sustainable business models for both a new Journal of Meteorological Data and an Open-Access Repository for documents related to the meteorological sciences.  The principal funder of the project is JISC, with complementary support from NCAS and NERC.   She has lead the examination of potential benefits of the journal and repository, and explored and tested them with users, from the scientific community and from commercial and public sector organisations.  A demo of an overlay journal, to test key concepts, was developed and the experience of run-throughs analysed.  User feedback from the survey and demo and a review of digital publishing literature highlighted issues around version control, review processes, quality assurance, pricing models, copyright/licensing, uptake of repositories, marketing and launch, citation, and the evolution of the scholarly process.  The work was undertaken in a partnership with two members of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (the British Atmospheric Data Centre and the University of Leeds). Back to top of page

Fiona worked with UKOLN at the University of Bath on the JISC-funded FixRep project. It is looking at ways of making on-line document repositories more accessible by automating the creation of the data that defines each entry. Fiona is contributing her experience of repositories in climate change and the meteorological sciences. Back to top of page

UK national organisations facing the challenge of climate change and weather impacts seek professional guidance to support evidence-based decision making, strategic planning, business planning and awareness raising within their organisations and with their stakeholders. Knowledge exchange activitities between scientists and organisations enable these organisations to influence scientific research programmes and better understand climate risks and opportunities.

Fiona is collaborating with hydrologists and engineers at Hyder consulting to assist the National Trust in developing a climate change adaptation plan for its world-renowed property at Mount Stewart Northern Ireland. The site is in a coastal zone and overlooks an intertidal habitat of international importance. Its Gardens are of major cultural importance to Northern Ireland and this popular site is financially important to National Trust Northern Ireland. Back to top of page