Brace yourself, climate change is here - Climate-Just Pathways to the 1.5°C Target
On 26 November 2018, the Climate Change Centre Austria organised a workshop together with renowned climate researchers about the IPCC Special Report on the 1.5°C target at the first Local Conference of Youth Austria at TU Wien. The aim was to convey the key findings of the report to participants and, in an interactive setting, to work out together what is needed and how one can become actively involved in order to achieve the target of the Paris Climate Agreement. You can find the workshop teaser here.
What is the COY?
The COY (Conference of Youth) takes place annually — this time for the 13th time — on the weekend before the international climate conference at that year's host location, and is an official event of YOUNGO, the youth constituency at the UNFCCC. Local Conferences of Youth, or LCOYs, are organised (ideally) before or during the Global COY in various parts of the world, with the particular aim of preparing young people for the climate negotiations at the COP through workshops, talks, and discussions. This year, for the first time, a Local COY — organised by the youth-led think-and-do tank CliMates Austria — took place in Austria from 16–18 November in Vienna. Click here for the website.
CCCA Workshop at the LCOY Austria
In a packed seminar room in the somewhat sombre Freihaus building at TU Wien, Reinhard Mechler from IIASA and author of the IPCC Special Report 1.5 began by outlining the key points and background information of the report. It became clear that the impacts on the Earth's natural and human systems at an average warming of 2°C would be considerably more severe than at 1.5°C, and that adaptation would therefore need to be far more drastic. Next, Stefan Kienberger from the University of Salzburg addressed the risks of climate change. Here, climate change also presented itself as a complex question of social justice, in addition to being an environmental problem. Sybille Chiari from BOKU then drew the connection to Austria specifically, making it clear that we need to take responsibility with regard to climate change. Finally, Thomas Schinko from IIASA and head of the CCCA Early Career Working Group brought the first part of the workshop to a close with his talk on the collective challenge of the urgently needed transformation. Because: "We are all the change! — within the scope of our agency and personal limits."
Following the talks, the highly motivated young participants got together in groups to share their own ideas about possibilities and opportunities. Ideas were also developed to make climate science heard more effectively. The key outcome was the development of a Social Media Initiative for the 1.5° target, with the intention of inspiring more young people to engage with the topic and encouraging them to get involved in the initiative — so as to collectively build pressure on political decision-makers and push them to act. The creative ideas and concepts put forward by participants ranged from responses to the question of what young people need from science, to the development of concrete tools such as hashtags, challenges, and GIFs.
The researchers also used the workshop as an opportunity to engage with the younger generation and learn from the participants. The workshop had a few small revelations in store for them, too — they got to find out what memes are and how influencers got their name.
