Naturklima commits to citizen science and creating group projects to empower citizens to tackle climate change
08/02/2024
The Gipuzkoa Climate Change Foundation held a workshop to analyse the opportunities, barriers and needs to make citizens jointly responsible, educate them and enable them to take climate action.
The workshop was part of the LIFE IP Urban Klima 2050 project under C.7.1 Citizen training.
Naturklima brought together key players in environmental education on December 15 with the aim of reaching a consensus on the current situation in terms of citizen empowerment against climate change. The co-creation workshop was also used to analyse the opportunities, barriers and needs for new content, approaches, methodologies and resources to make citizens jointly responsible, educate them in this area, and enable them to take climate action and make the transition to more sustainable habits.
The methodology used, the World Cafe, allowed dynamic interaction between the participants, who addressed three key issues:
- Do we have enough information to be able to communicate and raise awareness about climate change?
- How can we empower citizens to adopt more sustainable habits?
- How can we find out whether the actions carried out achieve the desired objective?
Key proposals
The results of the workshop revealed a number of key needs and proposals that could guide future actions:
With respect to making information available, making messages clear, adapting them to the target audience and using new channels and means of communication was acknowledged as being important. The inclusion of positive messages and the dissemination of collective achievements are crucial when it comes to making citizens more aware and increasing their engagement.
In order to empower citizens towards more sustainable habits, proposals include continuing and sustaining awareness-raising campaigns, and designing experiences that allow them to perceive the impacts of individual actions. The effectiveness of the measures taken can also be disseminated as motivating factors that may increase citizen engagement.
Proposals to address these needs include the use of citizen science tools as channels for empowerment, and the public recognition of actions carried out by citizens. The importance of creating joint projects in collaboration with recognised associations was underlined, thereby fostering collaboration and networking at a municipal level.
The workshop was part of the LIFE Urban Klima 2050 project under C7.1 Citizen Training.
