JPI Climate Chair and MAGICA partners join Vatican’s pan-European climate adaptation summit

The Pontifical Academies of Sciences (PAS) and of Social Sciences (PASS) – The Vatican with European Partners Vienna, August 28-29, 2025

A Vatican-led climate adaptation initiative takes place in Vienna this week, drawing together an impressive group of Europe’s leading experts, including JPI Climate senior figures and speakers who featured at June’s ECCA2025.

‘From Climate Crisis to Climate Resilience in Europe at Local and Regional Levels’ is organised by the Pontifical Academies of Sciences (PAS) and of Social Sciences (PASS).

It aims to strengthen climate resilience through science-based evidence, and networking among science and policy and society consultations for actions, catalysing mitigation and adaptation actions by enabling societal transformation.

The summit is notable for the wide range of speakers from multiple stakeholder aspects as well as for the seniority of its scientific and global speakers. They range from Elina Bardram, Director for Climate Resilience and Information Management, European Commission, DG CLIMA, to Alastair Hannaford, World Health Organisation Youth Council Co-Chair who is also a World Organization of the Scout Movement representative.

JPI Climate Chair Antonio Navarra, who is President of MAGCA lead partner CMCC Foundation (Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change) is speaking on Friday in the morning’s Coastal Resilience discussion. The  JPI Oceans/JPI Climate Sea Level Rise Knowledge Hub which produced Europe’s 1^st Assessment Report of the Knowledge Hub on Sea Level Rise and which was published in November last year will also be represented by Co-Chair Nadia Pinardi, Director of Decade Collaborative Centre for Coastal Resilience.

Frank McGovern, JPI Climate Vice Chair for the Equinox Process, will also participate in this high-level Dialogue. He is moderating Thursday’s panel on Weather Disasters – recovery and prevention.

Expected to be joining the European Climate Summit is Maria-Gabriella Baldarelli who spoke at ECCA2025’s final plenary on behalf of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, where she called on ‘cities, provinces, urban and rural area resilience leaders’ to ensure inclusivity in resilience actions.

(Left to Right) Maria-Gabriella Baldarelli, Frank McGovern, Antonio Navarra, Nadia Pinardi

This week’s pan-European summit is one of a series of global high-level discussions building on ‘The Faith and Science’ initiative by the Vatican, which, with the support of the governments of Italy and the UK mobilized science communities, and the Governments of the UK and Italy, helped to shape the COP26 agenda in Glasgow in 2021. A meeting of experts was held by PAS in July 2022, followed by a global summit was organised jointly by PAS and PASS in May 2024, assembling mayors and regional governors from both hemispheres to discuss and showcase innovative solutions for climate resilience. The outcome of the summit was a Planetary Call to Action for Climate Change Resilience. Since February this year summits have been taking place, drawing on expertise in regions around the world, ending in March 2026. They are feeding into this year’s world climate summit, COP30 in Brazil, November 10^th-21^st, and next year’s COP, and culminating in a Final Vatican Summit planned for 2027.

Attendees will be mayors of cities and heads of provinces from all parts of Europe facing a broad spectrum of urban and rural areas resilience challenges, together with EU Commission leaders, youth, science, business and civil society stakeholders.

The PAS and PASS aims are to:

• Develop options for climate resilience-oriented regional and local planning, including adaptation strategies, and sharing local business plans.
• Create high-level policy dialogue formats for resilience actions, combined with youth and multi-stakeholder perspectives on climate resilience.
• Facilitate the adoption of implementation protocols, and structured inputs for city and regional protocols for Climate Resilience for COPs and for the Final Vatican Summit in 2027.

Here you can find more information on Programme and speakers.

(Banner Photo by Jacek Dylag on Unsplash)