The Initiative for Enhancing Capacity for Climate Risk Assessment and Catalyzing Partnerships to Inform Decisions in Latin America and the Caribbean, or LACI, is a collaborative effort between the U.S. Global Change Research Program and U.S. Group on Earth Observations (USGEO) and regional partners, including AmeriGEO and the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research. Its overarching vision is to provide opportunities for partnerships between Caribbean, Latin American, and North American countries to enhance capacity for climate risk and vulnerability assessments that would support local and regional decision-making in response to climate change impacts.
LACI is grounded in co-design with the following anticipated overarching activities: partnership building and fostering, peer-to-peer learning and training, and data synthesis and analysis. The proposed activities will help participants across career stages expand their knowledge of assessment practices and protocols while building meaningful relationships across geographic, disciplinary, and institutional borders.
Questions? Please contact Brian Leung.
Updates
November 2022
Following the LACI Concept Development Webinar (28 September 2022), LACI participants from 10 countries (Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Peru, Paraguay, Uruguay, and the USA) submitted pilot initiative concepts. LACI partners (USGCRP, USGEO, AmeriGEO, & IAI) will jointly conduct the final stocktake of the concepts and identify the pilot concept(s) in early 2023.
October 2022
LACI is currently wrapping up its Phase 1: Scoping and Partnership Building and moving into Phase 2: Pilot Activity Development. Representatives from 14 countries (Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, & USA) have participated in regional scoping and partnership-building activities so far. In workshops held in May and August of 2022, the LACI participants identified countries' visions and needs for a climate-resilient future, existing capacities, and steps forward toward Pilot development.
To further facilitate the development of the LACI Pilot, LACI participants agreed on the following steps forward:
Fostering continuous regional peer-to-peer knowledge sharing on the topics relevant to climate risk assessments. LACI participants will continue to populate the LACI Pilot Year 1 Calendar of Regional Knowledge & Capacity Exchanges.
Building capacity for national/sub regional climate change assessments to help address specific societal challenges.
Calendar of Regional Knowledge and Capacity Exchanges
January 2023
Conference of Latin American Geography
Tucson, AZ | 3–7 Jan
Outreach/Partnership building
February 2023
In-person regional workshop with IAI-PAHO transdisciplinary seed grants on climate, environment, and health
Training
March 2023
Potentially leverage CEOS and EOTEC Dev Net activities in 2023
April 2023
Cities Summit of the Americas
Denver, CO | 26–28 April
Regional knowledge exchange
June 2023
SRI Congress 2023
Deliverable
IAI CoP-31
Deliverable
August 2023
AmeriGEO Week 2023 - LACI Partners Meeting
Costa Rica
Deliverable
LACI Year 2 Kickoff
November 2023
COP 28
United Arab Emirates | 6–17 Nov
LACI side event proposed