Contribution of CMIP Models in the Formulation of Adaptive Public Policies

Climate change is a current condition and interacts simultaneously with the multiplicity of interests and disputes of contemporary societies (Barnett and Adger in Polit Geogr 26(6):639–655, 2007). While local actors play a central role in the design of institutions, infrastructure, and behaviors, their options and incentives are inextricably entangled in other political and economic processes that do not always drive decarbonization and adaptation to climate change issues (Hughes et al. in Climate change and cities. Oxford University Press, 2020). Therefore, reflection on environmental, economic, political, social, and cultural issues are necessary to deal with the complexity of the climate and creation of new perspectives on policies and actions to face it (Di Giulio et al. in Region Environ Change 19(8):2491–2502, 2019). For that, the interaction between science and politics must be established in the processes of production/narrative of technical-scientific knowledge to guide and assimilate public policies (Bushell et al. in Nature Clim Change 5(11):971–973, 2015). This is the context that the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) is based on mint. It centers on robust and standardized methodologies under different local, regional, and global scopes in an interdisciplinary approach to predict climate and terrestrial systems (Eyring et al. in Geosci Model Dev 9(5):1937–1958, 2016a). It presents itself as a tool for innovative experiments, ideas, and practices capable of integrating the multilevel governance of urban climate change. Based on this perception and a bibliographic review as methodology, this chapter presents a discussion about how the CMIP projections can promote climate change adaptation strategies at the global and regional level, with a focus on São Paulo.