--- title: "Climate Data Providers 2026: Free and Commercial Sources for EU Risk Reporting" description: Free and commercial climate data providers compared for 2026, with a decision rule for EU Taxonomy and ESRS E1 physical risk reporting. image: https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/hubfs/pexels-cluster-images/29428793.jpg --- [Skip to content](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/en/blog/open-source-climate-data-for-risk-management-eu-taxonomy-csrd#main-content) [![Fiegenbaum Solutions Logo](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/hubfs/Branding/Fiegenbaum-Solutions_Logo.svg) ![Fiegenbaum Solutions Logo](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/hubfs/Branding/Fiegenbaum-Solutions_Logo.svg)](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/en/?hsLang=en) - [English](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/en/blog/open-source-climate-data-for-risk-management-eu-taxonomy-csrd) - [Deutsch](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/blog/die-5-besten-open-source-klimadatenquellen-fuer-dein-klimarisikomanagement) - Services - [Climate Risk Assessment](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/en/climate-risk-analysis-for-companies) - [VSME Report](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/en/vsme-reporting-for-smes) - [ESG Due Diligence VCs & Series A+](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/en/esg-due-diligence-vcs-series-a-startups) - [Product Carbon Footprint](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/en/product-carbon-footprint-lifecycle-assessment) - [Corporate Carbon Footprint](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/en/company-carbon-footprint-methods-tools-best-practice) - Solutions - [Materiality Screening](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/en/double-materiality-analysis-definition-process-best-practice#fs-screening) - [Atlas](https://atlas.fiegenbaum.solutions/en) - [Load Profile Check](https://atlas.fiegenbaum.solutions/en/lastgang-check) - [Pricing](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/en/esg-climate-consulting-fixed-prices-carbon-footprint-vsme-due-diligence-climate-risk) - [About me](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/en/about-me) - [Blog](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/en/blog) - [Contact](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/en/contact) ###### 10 min read # Understanding and Acting on Climate Risks: Top 5 Free Open-Source Climate Data Platforms for Compliance and Analysis By: [Johannes Fiegenbaum](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/en/blog/author/johannes-fiegenbaum) on 7/29/25, 11:25 AM · Last updated October 26, 2026 [EU Taxonomy](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/en/blog/tag/eu-taxonomy) [Climate Scenarios & Data](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/en/blog/tag/climate-scenarios-data) ![German Federal Chancellery in Berlin with the German flag](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/hubfs/pexels-cluster-images/29428793.jpg) **Open climate data covers most of an EU Taxonomy or ESRS E1 physical risk screening**, and commercial providers pick up only where resolution, scenario depth or an audit trail run out. The table below compares five free sources with the commercial alternative; the sections after it show where the free line stops paying and how to choose when it does. **Live data:** see how physical climate hazards such as flooding, drought and heat hit specific locations in the [Fiegenbaum Atlas climate risk dashboard](https://atlas.fiegenbaum.solutions/en/klimarisiko?utm_source=fiegenbaum-solutions&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=atlas-klimarisiko&utm_content=open-source-climate-data-for-risk-management-eu-taxonomy-csrd). ## Climate data providers compared: open and commercial The five open sources below cover most of a European physical risk screening. The commercial row shows, in general terms, what you pay for once open data's resolution or documentation runs out. Type, coverage, resolution, licence, API access and the EU reporting use are the six questions that decide a choice. | **Provider** | **Type** | **Geographic Coverage** | **Spatial Resolution** | **Licence** | **API** | **ESRS E1 / Taxonomy Use** | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | **[Copernicus CDS](https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/)** | Open (EU programme) | Global, strong in Europe | ERA5 ~31 km, ERA5-Land ~9 km; CMIP5/CMIP6 flexible | Copernicus licence, free reuse, attribution | Yes, documented API with Python client | Hazard baseline across all sites for Taxonomy DNSH and ESRS E1-9 screening | | **[DWD Open Data](https://www.dwd.de/EN/ourservices/opendata/opendata.html)** | Open (national, Germany) | Germany, limited Europe | Station data to 1 km × 1 km Germany, 5 km × 5 km Europe | GeoNutzV, commercial use allowed with source and date | No query API, open HTTPS directory | High-resolution local hazard detail for German sites | | **[NASA Earthdata](https://earthdata.nasa.gov/)** | Open (international) | Global | Mission-dependent, days to weeks | Open data policy, free reuse, dataset DOI citation expected | Yes, search and subsetting APIs | Global supply-chain monitoring where no national service exists | | **[WorldClim](https://worldclim.org/)** | Open (research) | Global | 30 arc-sec (~1 km) to 10 arc-min (~340 km²) | Free for academic and non-commercial use; commercial use needs prior permission | No API, static GeoTIFF download | Fast first orientation without a project budget | | **[OpenStreetMap Climate Layers](https://www.openstreetmap.org/about)** | Open (community) | Global, strongest in European urban areas | Flexible; Local Climate Zone layer at 100 m | Open Database Licence, attribution plus share-alike | Yes, Overpass API | Exposure layer for placing assets under ESRS E1-9 | | **Commercial asset-level providers** | Commercial | Varies by vendor, often global | Asset or site level, with damage functions | Commercial contract, no public attribution requirement | Typically yes | Expected annual loss figures and audit-trail documentation | ## Free versus commercial climate data providers: where open data stops Everything in the table above except the last row is free, and for a large part of an EU Taxonomy or ESRS E1 physical risk screening that is enough. Climate risk data providers split into open and commercial for a reason: open data stops being enough at four specific points, and knowing them is cheaper than finding out mid-project. **Resolution at the asset.** Open grids are built for regions. A 1 km cell, let alone a 31 km reanalysis cell, describes the area around a site, not the plot itself. Where the difference between the yard and the building decides the number, pluvial flooding above all, free data runs out. **The step from hazard intensity to money.** No free source publishes damage functions. Turning a hail return period into an expected annual loss needs an assumption about how a specific roof, fleet or stock reacts, and that assumption is what commercial climate risk data providers actually sell. **The audit trail.** Free portals version their datasets, but they do not produce documentation stating which model, scenario and run produced a given figure. If an auditor, bank or insurer has to follow the calculation, someone writes that documentation, either you or a supplier. **Liability.** Open data comes without warranty. Commercial contracts rarely offer much more, but they do offer a counterparty. In a multi-site dealer group analysis, free sources carried the entire hazard side without difficulty. Everything genuinely hard sat elsewhere: site geometry, roof types, vehicle values on the yard, and which sites deserved capital first. Buying data would have answered none of it; that is the honest boundary, and the next section turns it into a checklist. ## Copernicus CDS and DWD: the open sources that hold up in an EU report ![Copernicus Climate Data Store](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/hubfs/blog-bilder-archiv/17588a9c209d6350e4f8832fbcbf4066.jpg) Europe's free climate data comes in layers. At EU level, the Copernicus Climate Change Service, run by ECMWF for the Commission, operates the Climate Data Store (CDS) as the single access point for reanalyses, projections and sectoral indicators. National services such as DWD publish station measurements and grids under open-data rules. A physical climate risk analysis needs a hazard layer, an exposure layer and a vulnerability assumption; open data covers the first two well and the third not at all. The CDS carries both the historical baseline, ERA5 reanalysis on a 0.25° grid (about 31 km), with the land-only ERA5-Land running at about 9 km, and the forward-looking projections, CMIP5 and CMIP6 under RCP and SSP scenarios. Having trend and scenario from one free, Copernicus-licensed source is what makes an EU Taxonomy or [ESRS E1 screening](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/en/blog/cordex-eur-11-vs-cmip6-climate-risk-analysis?hsLang=en) assessable across all sites, not only German ones. Official references, DWD Climate Atlas, EEA hazard reports, KWRA 2021, IPCC AR6, do not provide quantitative five-tier exposure classes for the climate parameters companies actually have to assess, so I built that layer myself: thirteen parameters across eight hazard categories (heat waves, heavy precipitation, drought, storms, wildfire, flooding, frost, soil moisture), each with a five-tier threshold scale referenced to current observations, RCP4.5 mid-century, RCP8.5 mid-century and RCP8.5 end-of-century. Without it, climate risk reporting collapses into description. With it, exposure becomes [comparable across sites](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/en/blog/physical-risks-and-transition-risks-how-to-assess-climate-risks?hsLang=en#how-to-prioritise-physical-climate-risks-across-sites) and timeframes. DWD has provided climate data free of charge since a July 2017 legal amendment; as Germany's national meteorological authority it operates around 400 active climate stations and 2,000 precipitation stations, with grids down to 1 km × 1 km for Germany and 5 km × 5 km for Europe. Data falls under the GeoNutzV regulation: commercial use is allowed, source and reference date must be named. For German sites, pair DWD's local resolution with the CDS scenario layer rather than choosing one over the other; see also [ISO 14091 Climate Risk Analysis: A Practical Guide for Companies](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/en/blog/iso-14091-climate-risk-analysis-guide-companies?hsLang=en). ## Choosing a provider for ESRS E1 physical risk screening A short checklist decides faster than re-reading the section above for every site: - **Resolution:** does the hazard grid resolve the asset, not just the region? Under 1 km for plot-level flood or heat exposure, an open regional grid for a first baseline. - **Scenario linkage:** does the dataset carry an RCP or SSP pathway through to the reporting horizon, not just a historical baseline? - **Audit trail:** can you name the model, run and version behind every figure, or does someone still have to write that documentation? - **Support and liability:** is there a counterparty to call when a figure is challenged, or only a terms-of-use page? Open data answers the first two questions for most sites. It is the third and fourth where paying for [commercial asset-level data](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/en/blog/physical-risks-and-transition-risks-how-to-assess-climate-risks?hsLang=en) earns its cost, usually once a portfolio is too large to document by hand. For startups and small portfolios the route stays free: the barrier is the method, not the data. ## FAQs Where can I get climate data for free? Five public sources cover most of an EU risk screening without cost: Copernicus CDS for the European hazard baseline, DWD Open Data for German detail, NASA Earthdata for global supply chains, WorldClim for a fast first read, and OpenStreetMap for the exposure layer. The comparison table above lists resolution, licence and API access for each. What is the difference between weather data and climate data? Weather data describes current conditions and short-range forecasts, useful days to weeks ahead. Climate data aggregates observations and model output into multi-decadal reanalyses and scenario projections such as CMIP6. An EU Taxonomy or ESRS E1 screening needs the second kind: it looks decades ahead, not days. What licence and attribution rules apply when free climate data goes into a published report? Four of the five open sources permit commercial use, WorldClim only with prior permission, and all five require attribution: a source line for Copernicus, a dataset DOI for NASA Earthdata, source plus reference date under GeoNutzV for DWD, and share-alike for OpenStreetMap's derived databases. In practice this means one attribution line per source in the methodology annex, and a record of dataset version and download date, the one an auditor usually asks for first. How do open-source climate data sources help with compliance with EU requirements such as the EU Taxonomy and CSRD? Open-source climate data gives companies transparent, standardised evidence for assessing and disclosing environmental and sustainability performance, central to meeting the **[EU Taxonomy](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/en/blog/eu-taxonomy-omnibus-package-2025-simplification?hsLang=en)** and **[CSRD](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/en/blog/demystifying-esrs-a-comprehensive-guide-to-european-sustainability-reporting-standards-and-csrd-disclosure-requirements?hsLang=en)**, and what makes a disclosure comparable between reporting periods ([source](https://www.efrag.org/)). Which open-source climate datasets best support EU CSRD climate-risk reporting? The Copernicus Climate Data Store is the most directly relevant free source for CSRD and ESRS E1 disclosure, offering global reanalyses, projections and sectoral impact indicators. NASA Earthdata and WorldClim add global depth, DWD adds high-resolution German detail. Combine a European or global baseline with a local layer, document model version and time horizon, and keep the methodology consistent across reporting periods. Is there a free climate data API, and which of these sources offer one? Some do, not all. Copernicus CDS, NASA Earthdata and OpenStreetMap offer documented APIs, Python clients for the first two, Overpass for OSM. DWD publishes an open HTTPS directory with community wrappers for Python and R. WorldClim has no API, only static file downloads. Next step Turn climate risk or ESG data into a decision? In a 30-minute intro call we map where your biggest lever is, with no obligation. [Book an intro call](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/en/contact?hsLang=en) ![Johannes Fiegenbaum](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/hubfs/Johannes_07-modified.png) ### Johannes Fiegenbaum ESG and sustainability consultant based in Hamburg, specialised in VSME reporting, carbon accounting and climate risk analysis. Works with mid-sized companies, investors and financial institutions, and developed the VSME reporting software VSEasy together with clients. [More about](https://www.fiegenbaum.solutions/en/about-me?hsLang=en) Related articles ## You may also like ### [Climate Risk Assessment RCP vs SSP: How to Choose Climate Scenarios (SSP 2.6, 4.5, 8.5) for Business Strategy \[2026\] Live data: see how physical climate hazards such as flooding, drought and heat hit specific locations in the Fiegenbaum Atlas climate risk dashboard. RCP vs SSP: What's the ... 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