Climate Change Challenge
Climate Change Challenge
Find out about how central banks, supervisors, and regulators in the EU work together to assess the impact of climate change on the economy.
Congratulations to the "Climate Challengers" teams!
Eight ESCB/SSM teams worked around the clock for 24 hours on 14-15 November to develop prediction models on the impact of droughts and heat waves on the economy. After presenting their results to a jury chaired by Irene Heemskerk, Head of the Climate Change Centre, three teams made it to the podium and received a prize from ECB President Christine Lagarde on 16 November.
A highly useful contribution
The competition was hard fought. Each team captured well the sense of urgency, used a variety of models, considered policy implications, and showed creativity and enthusiasm during their presentations. The winning teams stood out to the jury due to the insights into the complexity of the compounding effects of climate change, the original use of climate data, their technical skills, and their strong collaboration, which embraced the diverse skillsets of each team.
Around 80 participants and mentors from 26 institutions attended the event in Frankfurt, bringing diverse talents in climatology, data science, computer science, macro- and micro-prudential risks, law, and economics.
The teams’ contributions helped improve our understanding of climate extremes and their impact on two sectors of the economy (agricultural and industrial sectors). The Climate Change Centre and the European Commission (Copernicus Programme) will work further on these results with the teams.
The code developed by each teams is available here on the open source platform code.europa.eu.
“Beat the heat with cool insights!” is the first ESCB/SSM hackathon on climate change. It is a joint endeavour by the ECB, Banque de France, Banca d'Italia, and the European Commission’s Copernicus Programme. The result of a collaboration of CSO/Governance and Transformation Services, DG-HR, the Climate Change Centre, DG-S, and DG-IS, the event was also made possible thanks to the support provided by D-A, Secretariat, DG-C, and DG-L, and the colleagues who facilitated a “Climate Fresk” workshop with the participants.
While collaborating and sharing knowledge, the players got a unique opportunity to gain and develop skills in handling climate data, a skill still largely unavailable in central banking. The hackathon and its somewhat different format delivered on its promise to achieve valuable results in a creative and enjoyable atmosphere.