Climate crisis needs empowered people

Jacqueline McGlade, BBC Green Room 17 Feb 09;

People power is at the heart of the effort to beat climate change, says Professor Jacqueline McGlade, head of the European Environment Agency. In this week's Green Room, she says that the task is so great, and the timescale so tight, that we can no longer wait for governments and businesses to act.

The key to protecting and enhancing our environment is in the hands of the many, not the few.

To adapt effectively to the challenges that will come with climate change, including biodiversity loss, water stress and forced migrations of species, we need to harness the information available and will to act at the local level.

That means empowering citizens to engage actively in improving their own environment, using new observation techniques and innovative economic ideas.

Sadly, the political, economic and administrative mechanisms that we design to tackle environmental concerns all too often leave citizens sidelined as silent observers.

Information is made available as lists of figures or spreadsheets that only experts can interpret.

Imagine if all the statistics that inform our evening weather forecasts were presented in this way, or all the data that drives popular software like Google or Windows.

Do you think they would continue to be as popular?

To encourage and benefit from participation we need to present our information in a way everyone can understand.

To address this urgent need the European Environment Agency (EEA) is working with the European Union, developing new systems to engage citizens as suppliers and users of environmental data.

The Shared Environmental Information System is one such collaboration between the EU and EEA.

The initiative will guide Europe's collection and dissemination of environmental information over the coming years.

This new approach supports the shift from paper to web-based reporting, managing information as close as possible to its source and making it available to users openly and transparently.

For Europe's citizens, this will mean both greater access to information and a bigger role in reporting.

When EU bodies review members' compliance with environmental standards, they will increasingly refer to national websites where everyone can access the relevant data, rather than relying on confidential submissions.

Meanwhile, data collected pursuant to regulatory obligations will be integrated with information from voluntary, professional and amateur groups as well as from empowered citizens.

This will build a much more complete and nuanced picture of the state of Europe's environment.

Silent witnesses

Citizens have a role to play in data gathering the world over.

In the Arctic, for instance, indigenous people form part of the EEA's global observation network, providing evidence of the real change taking place to complement our observational data and models.

We know already that the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the globe.

Yet outside the territories, little is understood of the true cost to indigenous people of retreating ice or the impact of seasonal change on hunting.

We need to rectify this if we are to make the right decisions.

It is no longer sufficient to develop passive lists or reports to "inform" citizens of changes in our environment.

We need to engage with citizens and ask how they can inform us. Obtaining and using local knowledge will help us empower citizens, and will also give us a better indication of what we need to do to be truly sustainable.

To really engage the public, more co-ordinated and timely gathering of complex data needs to be complemented by "real time" delivery of the information, in language that is accessible to all.

The EEA's recently launched online portal, which is called the Global Citizen's Environmental Observatory, will enable European environmental information to be gathered and presented in a single location.

The Observatory will give governments, policymakers and citizens easy access to clear, comprehensible data in real time.

It will provide information on all environmental media - from the global perspective to the view from the street - at levels of detail previously unseen.

Water Watch, which provides information on bathing water quality, represents an illustration of the services to come.

Launched by the EEA and Microsoft last summer, it was visited almost 265,000 times in the first three weeks of August; a clear indication of public demand for user-friendly environmental information.

Crucially, the Observatory will afford every one of us a role in the information process by prioritising two-way communication.

In the case of Water Watch, local people are encouraged to give their opinion on the quality of the beach and water, thereby supplementing and validating official information.

Information technologies offer new ways to use all available data to the full and to present findings in ways that engage citizens and policymakers alike.

An example is the Climate Change Simulator, known as C-ROADS, currently being developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), with support from the EEA.

C-ROADS allows users to see how decisions on greenhouse gas emissions made by political leaders today will influence the climate over the next 100 years.

If the world cuts greenhouse gas emissions by 20%, 50% or 80%, what impacts will climate change have? The simulator provides some of the answers.

Importantly, it will be available to everyone, and isn't only for super computers and technicians.

That means each of us can use the same data as governments to model the change in his or her country.

From personal experience, I have noticed that people find the simulator simple to use and convincing in terms of its output.

It gives immediate feedback, which is essential when we want heads of state and ministers to see the consequences of their actions.

And it gives them and their citizens an insight into the scale of change that is needed.

Professor Jacqueline McGlade is executive director of the European Environment Agency

This article is based on a lecture hosted by environmental charity Earthwatch

The Green Room is a series of opinion articles on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website

Climate curbs need 'people power'
Mark Kinver, BBC News 17 Feb 09;

The battle against climate change can only be won "in the hands of the many, not the few", a top scientist has said.

Jacqueline McGlade, head of the European Environment Agency (EEA), warned the current approach left the public sidelined as "silent observers".

Political and business leaders were not able to tackle the problem without help from ordinary people, she added.

Professor McGlade said environmental policies would also benefit from data based on public observations.

"There is just no way that we are going to be able to shift ourselves to tackle the fundamental problems of the crisis without addressing public participation," she told BBC News.

By observing what was happening on the ground from more and more locations, Professor McGlade said that scientists and policymakers would get a more detailed picture of the impacts and what responses were needed.

She outlined her views during a lecture hosted by environmental charity Earthwatch.

'Silent witnesses'

However, coinciding with Earthwatch's annual lecture, an international survey of 12,000 people in 12 nations suggested that the people questioned actually wanted to see greater leadership from politicians and businesses.

The research, conducted by the HSBC Climate Partnership during autumn 2008, also indicated that most of those questioned wanted their governments to take more "direction action", such as investing in renewable energy.

Professor McGlade said these findings highlighted why it was important to encourage more public involvement.

"What we see around the world, even in China, is a yo-yo between government intervention, such as regulation and legislation, and the markets.

"It is this yo-yo effect that has created, in many cases, the boom-and-bust cycles.

"It is absolutely apparent that we need to balance that with much more explicit public participation."

In an article for BBC News' Green Room, she explained why she felt the current approach was not working.

"Sadly, the political, economic and administrative mechanisms that we design to tackle environmental concerns all too often leave citizens sidelined as silent observers," she wrote.

"Information is made available as lists of figures or speadsheets that only experts can interpret.

"Imagine if all of the statistics that inform our evening weather forecasts were presented in this way; do you think they would continue to be as popular?"

Professor McGlade said the EEA had launched an initiative that it hoped would overcome these barriers.

"The EEA's online portal, which is called the Global Citizen's Environmental Observatory, will enable European environmental information to be gathered and presented in a single location.

"It will give governments, policymakers and citizens easy access to clear, comprehensible data in real time," she explained. "It is no longer sufficient to develop passive lists or reports.

"We need to engage with citizens and ask how they can inform us, and it will also give us a better indication of what we need to do to be truly sustainable."