Climate Knowledge Brokers

The Climate Knowledge Brokers (CKB) Group is a growing alliance of currently around 400 leading global, regional and national knowledge brokers specialising in climate and development information. It brings together a diverse set of information players, from international organisations to research institutes, NGOs and good practice networks, and covers the full breadth of climate related themes.

After its initial home on the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) CKB was hosted by REEEP until September 2020. It now solely hosted on weADAPT. Please re/join the network by clicking on ‘Join the network’ at the top right of the page. All discussion and questions will now be managed through weADAPT’s discussion forum.

For now, the CKB website/domain will be forwarded. The LinkedIn group will be closed down and replaced by weADAPT’s discussion platform for the network.

The goal of CKB is to improve access to climate information by coordinating and orchestrating the efforts of climate knowledge brokers. It works by:

• Developing common tools: so climate data can be searched and shared efficiently, and users can identify quickly which websites and content is most relevant for them (including the Climate Tagger).
• Initiating joint projects: to connect up different websites, test out innovations and generate new thinking on how to best meet user needs.
• Supporting peer learning: providing opportunities for knowledge brokers to meet each other face-to-face, share the challenges they are facing, and compare experience of which approaches work best.
• Building capacity: offering hands-on advice to new initiatives being set up, so they can benefit from the wealth of experience within the group.
• Providing leadership: creating a focal point and a voice for the community as a whole, so the vital role of climate knowledge brokers is understood and championed.

Vision and Principles

The CKB Vision is a world in which people make climate-sensitive decisions fully informed by the best available climate knowledge.

In our work towards this vision, CKB adheres to seven main principles:

1. People who are trying to address the impact of a changing climate deserve high quality information to support them in their decision making.
2. CKB champions the importance of climate knowledge brokersin ensuring high quality climate relevant information is available and accessible to all who need it.
3. We believe that understanding user needs in their multiplicity is the starting point for effective climate knowledge brokering.
4. We are committed to learn together to improve the effectiveness of climate knowledge brokering.
5. We support climate knowledge brokers in choosing appropriate tools and methods to address their users’ needs, including intelligent use of digital technologies.
6. We apply collaboration as a standard in our work.
7. We promote open knowledge; meaning we have an open mindset, are actively seeking to share our knowledge and want to work with others who have the same attitude.

The Climate Knowledge Brokers Manifesto

In September 2015, CKB released its Manifesto, a milestone publication and call for joint action to meet the massive climate knowledge challenges ahead in the post-Paris world. It sets out a vision of a world in which people make climate sensitive decisions fully informed by the best available climate knowledge.

History of CKB

The CKB Group was formed in 2011 at a workshop held in Eschborn, Germany, to explore the scope for closer collaboration between online knowledge brokers working in the climate and development sectors. Convened by CDKN, GIZ and PIK-Potsdam, it brought together 21 leading web initiatives. The workshop proved highly successful, demonstrating a keen appetite for closer collaboration and generating a range of ideas on how to make this happen in practice. A second meeting was held in Bonn in May 2012 to take this agenda forward, and a follow-up workshop was held in Washington, in November 2012, hosted by the World Bank. The third annual CKB workshop was held in Bonn in June 2013, and in the years following that, the workshops took place in Brighton, UK and Copenhagen, Denmark. The sixth annual CKB workshop was hosted by the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado, in September 2016.

Looking to the future

If existing and new CKB members are actively looking for collaboration and exchange please find two webinars and a positioning paper relevant for taking this work forward:

• Webinar: Transforming knowledge management for climate action
• Webinar: Climate Change Action Through Artificial Intelligence: Putting Knowledge Graphs to Work
• Positioning paper: Creating a global Climate Action Knowledge Graph to leverage artificial intelligence and speed progress on the climate agenda