Reliable, affordable and climate‑resilient energy and infrastructure systems are pivotal for the achievement of sustainable development goals in the Global South. However, their design relies on skilful weather forecasts and climate projections in regions with sparse observations and poorly constrained models, where climate change is driving rapidly changing extremes. This leads to large uncertainty in pathways to net-zero, which will be explored in this session through the broad context of inviting contributions that:
1) assess climate‑impact drivers across sectors – wind, solar, hydro and bioenergy resources; drought, heatwaves, dust and tropical cyclones affecting energy, agriculture, water and health;
2) develop forecasting and scenario tools – these may include subseasonal‑to‑seasonal prediction of climate extremes and demand, nowcasting for micro‑grids or wind farms, storyline-based or multi‑decadal outlooks for planning and integration with power‑system, agricultural and hydrological models;
3) co‑produce climate services – e.g., through integration of citizen science, social science, AI/machine‑learning approaches to tackle data scarcity, ethical considerations, and design of equitable services with local utilities, communities, researchers and policymakers;
4) develop open data/open‑source models and training programmes to empower researchers and practitioners in the Global South; and
5) quantify socio‑economic impacts, cost analysis and policy pathways towards just and resilient energy systems.
We encourage case studies led by scientists and practitioners from Low- and Middle-Income Countries and abstracts demonstrating innovative methodologies and interdisciplinarity across engineering, economics, social sciences and weather and climate science. The session hopes to build a network that supports climate‑resilient development and progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 7.