Vatican-led European Climate Summit in Vienna

‘Climate change is here for the long haul, so our solutions must be, too’ was a strong message from the Vatican-organised European climate action summit.

JPI Climate’s contributions were focused on the agenda’s Coastal Resilience and Weather Disasters, Recovery and Prevention sessions.

• All the messages from the summit, held in Vienna on August 28-29, have been summed up in a Pontifical Academies of Sciences and Social Sciences Statement.

The two-day event ‘From Climate Crisis to Climate Resilience in Europe at Local and Regional Levels’ convened leading figures from science and policy across Europe as one of a series of summits around the world led by the Vatican through the Pontifical Academies of Sciences (PAS) and of Social Sciences (PASS).

JPI Climate Chair Antonio Navarra, who is President of MAGICA lead partner CMCC Foundation (Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change) spoke in Friday’s Coastal Resilience discussion covering the North Sea, Baltic Sea and Mediterranean.

Nadia Pinardi, Professor of Physical Oceanography, at the University of Bologna, Decade Collaborative Centre for Coastal Resilience and former Co-Chair of the JPI Climate/JPI Oceans Knowledge Hub on Sea Level Rise, also spoke in the session.

The session was moderated by Costas Papanicolas of the Cyprus Institute. The panel also included George Hatzimarkos, South Aegean Region & Association of Greek Regions; Jacek Piskozub, Committee for the Climate Crisis, Polish Academy of Sciences and Melinda Martinsof the WHO Youth Council, Youth Environment.

As well as the need for long-term solutions to match the long-term impacts of climate change, speakers agreed that it is too easy to dismiss as minor situations on the global map what are for many people, major stakes in communities on the ground.

JPI Climate Vice Chair Frank McGovern moderated the ‘Weather Disasters, Recovery and Prevention’ panel. It featured powerful insights from speakers Elina Badram, of the European Commission’s DG CLIMA; Cornelia Weigand, of Germany’s Ahrweiler District that experienced deadly floods in 2021; Elena Xoplaki of Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany; and Ronit Batra of the campaign group Climate Cardinals.

Throughout the summit there was a strong emphasis on young voices, climate education (beyond science) and the need to embrace respect, spirituality and the need for ‘imperative sacrifice’ in behaviour,  actions and decisions to enable true, sustainable climate adaptation.

The next Vatican Regional Climate Summit will be held in October, in Brazil, which will play host to world climate leaders at COP30, November 10-21.

(Cover Photo by Dmitrii E. on Unsplash)