Local Citizens Debates on climate Change “What I do about climate change?” - Copy

Climate change issues are clearly a growing concern for the public today. In recent years, people have received a great deal of information from media on the causes and consequences of climate changes, but – depending on countries and regions – the understanding of citizens and their engagement in these topics is still varied. Communication professionals are making effort to communicate the messages correctly. This project proposes to contribute to a global effort to develop news tools and educational actions on climate change from “informative” to the “active” procedures through the exchange and dissemination of practices that involve citizens in actions and dialogue.

This project will contribute to generate interests and to increase public awareness on global and local aspects of climate change.

In this context, four main objectives were identified:

• The first one is exchanging practices and integrating synergies among schools, involved in the project and engaged in the communication of climate change.
• The second one is to implement a global communication action based on communication of climate change issues.
• The third one is to disseminate the latest results of research and its contribution to the advancement of climate change comprehension.
• The fourth one is the engagement of citizens in debates, and the collection of data concerning their perception in on climate change issues, its risks and impact, both for the general public and for policymakers and other stakeholders.

These objectives were achieved through a coordinated work plan of activities during the project.

“What I do about climate change?” will be a campaign and will integrate with school labs, science demonstrations, participatory games, teacher training sessions, lectures and debates, taking place during the project, which engage the public (parents, students, teachers and general public) in the issues of climate change.

The project will end with a public meeting in the region of Campania or the municipality during which the students involved will present the best practices (decalogo) of behavior to be taken to reduce climate change in their city and will ask the possibility to disseminate them to the citizens and take them into consideration. .

Main phase of the project will be the Local Citizens’ Debates are participatory meetings with around 30 individuals taking part, which are structured to gather people’s views and perceptions on climate change issues. Participants are selected in order to have a representative mix of expertise, age, gender, and institutional connections.

Local Citizens Debate (LCD) aiming at raising interest and stimulating debate on climate change issues, risks and impacts both for the general public, for policymakers and other stakeholders. Those issues are a growing concern for society today so much so that the consequences can be experienced in daily life. However, the understanding of citizens and their engagement in these topics vary considerably due to the complexity and quantity of information available on media. This is a unique opportunity for people not only to debate with other citizens, but to make explicit the topics you want to deepen on climate change, the aspects deemed to be in need of better communication, the kind of actions you wish to see implemented both at local and global level.

We consider the project as a communication Campain through which actual research results can be disseminated to dialogue among students, teachers, scientists, stakeholders, policy makers and citizens.

To make young people grow with a sense of responsibility towards themselves and others, the planet Earth belongs to everyone and we all have the duty to contribute and to do our part, even if we have the feeling that it does not help because others are choose for us. Moreover this type of activity increases the transversal skills required today by the Italian educational system. In addition to participatory and communication activities, educational science activities will be held to investigate some scientific topics on climate change.

The first step will be dedicated to the selection and cataloguing of existing programmes and activities aimed at raising public awareness of climate change phenomena and the related impacts. A wide range of communication tools will be considered, such as participatory games, educational activities, workshops, lectures and debates. An online catalogue will be developed by the schools involved, sharing and exchanging the best experience. Each school establish relationships with local research institution groups working on climate change level for the implementation of their public programmes.

The main achievement, during the first step of the project, was the sharing and the definition of the best practices that will be used after for the campaign for the communication of climate change in all schools. Methodological inputs concerning the implementation of activities to be performed with the public during the campaign and for the organisation of the Local Citizens Debates.

The second step will be dedicated to developing the local communication action to the public with two actions: public programmes and Local Citizens Debates. First of all, each school will define the calendar of events during the 5 months, including a list of participatory games, educational activities, workshops, lectures and debates, involving the general public (citizens, students and teachers), and the organisation of one Local Citizens Debates (LCD), involving a representative sample of citizens from young people to senior citizens on a structured discussion about the expectations of climate issues.

The educational activities will focus on understanding the functioning of the climate and the earth system, including the ocean and the polar regions, determining the causes of changes in the past and predicting their probable future evolution.

All schools will organize special communication activities by stimulating the curiosity of citizens about climate change phenomena. The two-way approach - considering the social, ethical and economic aspects - suggest organizing, as much as possible, communication activities with experts and transforming the school into an “agora” encouraging the meetings of ideas, opinions and stimulating the discussion among people in a place where citizens could compare their ideas, opinions and points of view.

The “Local Citizens Debate” (LCD) will involve various actors: scientists from local research institutes, stakeholders, decision makers at the local level, civil society organizations and, of course, citizens. In this way, citizens will be the possibility of dealing with the local dimension of climate change (at the regional and local levels) in relation to the global dimension.

The goals of the LCDs are to identify specific needs and to implement the appropriate processes of agenda-framing, getting people engaged in a real dialogue on the future, where they can freely express their fears concerning the consequences of climate change and their expectations and propositions, in order to offer useful tools for local policy makers. To the end will be write the best practices to present during the final event at the Municipality or at office of Campania Region.