EmCliC+ Societal Engagement

We will continue to work on adaptation to urban heat in Europe, through a small project EmCliC+ Societal Engagement, part of Science & Society: bilateral initiative in social sciences, arts and humanities, led by Jagiellonian University and funded by the Norway and EEA grants 2014–2021.
Increasing heatwaves are one of the major climate change related risks in Europe. They are especially intense in urban areas, negatively affecting the health and wellbeing of many vulnerable groups, including adults older than 65 years old. It is estimated that 60 000 people died in the summer of 2022 in Europe due to heat stress. While cities in southern Europe (e.g. Madrid) face unprecedented hot temperatures, and cities in central-eastern Europe (e.g. Warsaw) are forced to re-adapt from cold to hot weather, the urban areas in northern Europe (e.g. Oslo) are not yet as heavily affected but will be in the future. While some cities develop heat protocols and heat health plans, others have not yet done so. Moreover, these policies are often disconnected from people’s needs and daily realities. The aim of EmCliC+ Societal Engagement is to use participatory tools to prepare and discuss localized policy briefs on urban heat adaptation. By engaging with various local stakeholders, including older citizens, we will identify the main social challenges and possible solutions in managing adaptation to heat in Warsaw. We will also identify the heat related risks and challenges, and the existing policies, to the impending heat adaptation in Oslo. This analysis could be utilized by other cities across Europe.
Building on the research findings of EmCliC project conducted in 2020-2024, researchers from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan and Norwegian Institute for Air Research in Oslo will plan, organize and cross-analyze the findings from two main research activities.
In Warsaw, we will organize a 2-day participatory forum theatre, which is a type of ‘theatre of the oppressed’, facilitating bottom-up engagement and problem solving. This technique builds on artistic expression and sensitivity to creatively and collaboratively engage society in political problem solving. Forum theatre begins with a short performance which demonstrates particular social or political problems. We will focus on showcasing the main social challenges stemming from increased urban heat. Then the group collaboratively, with guidance from the facilitators, prepares solutions to these problems. The participants will be older adults living in Warsaw. The objective of the forum theatre will be to create a comprehensive citizen guide to heatwave adaptation. This citizen guide will be then analyzed and turned into a policy brief. We plan to organize a half-day workshop with the representatives of the city council and non-governmental organizations, to present and discuss the identified social challenges and solutions to managing heat adaptation in Warsaw. We hope this will spark a transdisciplinary cross-sectional discussion about urban heat adaptation.
In Oslo, we plan to organize a participatory workshop in collaboration with representatives of the local government and representatives of an organization addressing the needs of senior citizens, to discuss the local heat risks, existing strategies, and the heat adaptation plans in other cities across Europe. The participants will be older adults living in Oslo and we will share the findings from the previous research conducted in Madrid and Warsaw and the prepared policy recommendations, to spark the engagement and discussion about future needs of heat adaptation in northern Europe. The participatory workshop will focus on discussing the daily realities of living in increased urban heat and will deliberate on the social challenges and possible solutions to managing heat adaptation in Oslo.
In preparing the citizen guided policy brief for Warsaw and the white paper on the heat risks in northern Europe, we will build on the AMU and NILU’s teams’ expertise in social anthropology, sociology, citizen science and environmental science. By collaborating with local NGOs and building on local knowledge in preparing bottom-up, citizen guided policy briefs on urban heat adaptation, we aim to create localized solutions to these extreme risks and challenges. These solutions could be then potentially utilized in other locations. Such a transfer of knowledge between local communities and policy makers could enrich different cities’ awareness and capacity for heat adaptation across Europe and beyond.