Think 2030 Dialogue for sustainability

The Think2030 Dialogue was held on 16 November, 2023. This high level conference brought together decision-makers, policy analysts, and industry experts across Europe, in the Ministry of Ecologic Transition in Madrid, Spain. It was jointly organised by the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3), and Elcano Institute.

Three Science4Policy sessions covered the EU’s role in the net-zero transition geopolitics, and the Spanish experience on just transition in Europe. JPI Climate convened the session focused on science and policymaking, on how to engage with policy makers.

The Think2030 Dialogue served as a stepping-stone towards the Equinox Summit II, scheduled for 26 March 2024 in Brussels, Belgium, a milestone event of JPI Climate with the support of MAGICA, to accelerate the provision to inform evidence-based decision making.

Highlights included the established Equinox process, the annual Climate Science Summit. The first Summit took place on 21-22 of March 2023 to accelerate the transfer of knowledge from science and innovation to policy and actions. During the first Summit, Jim Skea, Chair of the IPCC emphasised that this is a significant and timely initiative for Europe and has the potential to contribute to the future work of the IPCC.

The panelist of the Science for policy session 3 “How to engage with policy makers?” Prof Myles Allen, Oxford Martin Programme on Post Carbon Transition, confirmed that what we can learn from the IPCC process at the European level in this dialogue; he called for more cooperation agreements from the governments, to turn knowledge into action and to also involve the public in the decision making. Prof Nadia Pinardi from University of Bologna highlighted in this dialogue the joint JPI Climate/JPI Oceans Knowledge Hub Sea Level Rise that she is co-chairing and announced its first European Assessment Report for early next year. Other panelists mentioned that the science must be more inclusive, and solutions might come from the society; to support the transition of knowledge to decision makers identifying research priorities regarding the climate services. Regular updates are important to build trust and facilitate better understanding between the parties. Science must intervene at the different stage of the policy cycle, elaboration design and assessment cycle, scientists can also facilitate in framing the issue and formulating the question.

The wishes for the next Equinox: save the debate and to have a clear messaging why this is important for Europe, more discussions with young generation, to be politically inclusive and think collectively about making climate policy to work, push evidence based information forward and build partnerships into the evidence generated by the scientists.

The live stream of the event is available on YouTube