Implementing Open Data Strategies for Climate Action: Suggestions And Lessons Learned for Government and Civil Society Stakeholders

This working paper by the World Resources Institute, developed with the Open Data Charter and the Inter-American Development Bank, advocates for the adoption of open data strategies to enhance climate action. It outlines the benefits of making climate-related datasets freely available for redistribution and use, drawing on a literature review, expert consultations, and pilot projects conducted in Chile and Uruguay between August 2019 and August 2020.

• Open data provides five primary benefits for climate policymaking and action: it improves data coordination and quality by reducing duplicative investments; informs decision-making by reducing fragmentation; fosters novel partnerships and trust between actors; democratizes modeling by allowing global models to be downscaled to local contexts; and enhances the monitoring of policies and programs, which can strengthen reporting frameworks under the Paris Agreement.
• The paper identifies that climate-related data is frequently fragmented across agencies, incomplete, or provided in formats that hinder comprehension and reuse, which leads to redundancies and limits the data's value for decision-making.
• The document highlights specific regional examples of open data impact: in Chile, the Center for Climate and Resilience Research (CR2) uses open data for national climate models; in Colombia, the Aclímate Colombia platform helps farmers adapt to weather patterns; in Indonesia, the InaSAFE platform aided disaster response after the 2016 Aceh earthquake; and in Spain, the Futuro en Común coalition used open data to monitor progress toward Sustainable Development Goals.

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). Implementing Open Data Strategies for Climate Action: Suggestions And Lessons Learned for Government and Civil Society Stakeholders. https://www.wri.org/research/implementing-open-data-strategies-climate-action-suggestions-and-lessons-learned

Chicago

World Resources Institute. Implementing Open Data Strategies for Climate Action: Suggestions And Lessons Learned for Government and Civil Society Stakeholders. n.d. https://www.wri.org/research/implementing-open-data-strategies-climate-action-suggestions-and-lessons-learned.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=Implementing Open Data Strategies for Climate Action: Suggestions And Lessons Learned for Government and Civil Society Stakeholders |url=https://www.wri.org/research/implementing-open-data-strategies-climate-action-suggestions-and-lessons-learned |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendimplementing, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{Implementing Open Data Strategies for Climate Action: Suggestions And Lessons Learned for Government and Civil Society Stakeholders}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://www.wri.org/research/implementing-open-data-strategies-climate-action-suggestions-and-lessons-learned}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }