Press Release (2017-05-29)/ Klimagune Workshop 2017: Climate Change and Public Engagement
“KLIMAGUNE 2017 – CLIMATE CHANGE AND PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT”
The challenge of Klimagune 2017 – the two-yearly gathering on climate change– is to join forces in generating new transdisciplinary knowledge of climate change and transmitting it to numerous audiences by means of innovative dynamics of engagement.
Its goal is to activate a framework of collaboration intended to remain permanently in place for all agents obliged to engage in action against climate change: from academia and the institutions to all citizens.
Organised by BC3 (Basque Centre for Climate Change) and the University of the Basque Country, the 7th edition of this workshop will analyse forms and degrees of social engagement in regard to climate change, with contributions by some of the most respected thinkers and leaders in the field.
With this call to generate networks of action in which all agents take an active part, Klimagune 2017 takes up the spirit of action following the Paris Agreements.
Bilbao, 29th May 2017. With the title “Climate Change and Public Engagement”, and in the framework of Klimagune 2017 – the two-yearly gathering on climate change – on 31st May the BC3 (Basque Centre for Climate Change) and the University of the Basque Country will set the stage for a crossdisciplinary meeting at which all agents will be invited to make their contributions and participate in launching joint actions against climate change.
The gathering will provide the opportunity to generate dynamics of shared engagement between experts in the fields of academia, business, the institutions, non-governmental organisations and the general public with a view to joining hands in co-creating solutions. The result will be the development of new approaches to fighting climate change, which necessarily implies generating networks with a common outlook, aimed at taking action, and organised according to participatory methods.
The workshop will open with two plenary sessions lending context to engagement and social commitment in the area of sustainability and climate change – with the points of view of British scientist Jamie Clarke, Executive Director at Climate Outreach (Oxford, UK), and Francisco Heras, from the Spanish Climate Change Office (Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Food and the Environment). Two round-table discussions will take place after the talks, followed by work sessions moderated by Altekio, experts in sustainability, to incorporate valuable engagement with the public.
Today there is high demand for engagement in key areas for social transformation, and to guarantee its effectiveness and efficiency, said engagement requires a specific model that enables democratic decision-making and participant empowerment, integrates the different kinds of knowledge, and it is aimed at obtaining the greatest benefit from the different projects and programmes against climate change.
Thus, the 7th edition of Klimagune, to run like in previous years at the Bizkaia Aretoa in Bilbao, will contribute to examining how citizens presently perceive climate change, looking at existing methods of engagement and their usefulness in order to contribute knowledge and scientific tools capable of facilitating future multidisciplinary engagement and directing it towards joint action.
Ainhoa Azkarate
636 642873
Full programme available at: