Connecting the Digital and the Ecological Transitions

Hosted by the United Nations, Data for Climate Action is an open innovation challenge, demonstrating how game-changing new datasets can support climate change mitigation and adaptation.

The campaign aims to spur greater action on climate change by accelerating innovations in data-driven climate solutions and helping to build resilience around the world. The campaign will be divided into two phases. The first phase will mobilize data from the private sector around issues in climate action, leading to announcements on “Data Philanthropy” at COP21 in December 2015 in Paris. The second phase will be a research challenge, galvanizing institutions to analyse what may be one of the largest pools of big data yet.

How it Works

• Companies are invited to share data relevant to the research questions identified.
• Research teams around the world will be invited to tackle specific problems related to climate action in the areas of resilience, cities and energy, using big data analytics.
• Datasets available for the challenge will be listed on the website. Research teams will be invited to submit a project proposal, and select research teams will be given limited access to the datasets to develop their projects.
• A high-level Judges Panel will evaluate project submissions, with support from an Ethics Panel.