Description
Climate change is considered to be an irreversible phenomenon both for the society we live in, and for the Earth in general. The main objective of “The Climate Change Forum” proposed by the Regional Environmental Center Romania is to provide technical and political expertise in climate change related issues for environmental NGO’s, central, local, regional and national public authorities, private and academic sector, with the aim of promoting a low-carbon and greenhouse gas economy and an energetically sustainable future. Another objective of the project is capacity building that will be achieved with the aid of a Norwegian partner, GRID-Arendal. During the project implementation it will be developed a Climate Forum as a unique and comprehensive source of information in the field of climate change, recognized both by the key actors, but also by the general audience, whom will use the online platform as an information source. The project will generate a series of recommendation reports, built around the three proposed thematic areas: energy efficiency, sustainable transportation and communication.
Summary of project results
Climate change is considered to be an irreversible phenomenon both for the society we live in, and for our planet in general. The project’s aim was to develop the Climate Forum online platform as a unique and comprehensive source of information in the field of climate change, for both key actors, and general public. Climate change is, at the moment, a global challenge that requires a responsible approach achieved through cooperation of all stakeholders in order to identify the best action plans and tools for slowing down the increasing global temperature. The Climate Forum was a support for dialogue between the different stakeholders who are part of the target sectors of the National Strategy on Climate Change, officially issued in December 2015. The basis for successfully running the project and the backbone of the project was the Climate Forum portal
www.forumul-climatic.ro and the database with relevant stakeholders (more than 250 representatives). The platform allows the members networking and monitoring and influencing public policies and authorities’ activity regarding climate change. The development of the platform was followed by organising 3 internal relevant events and attending other 8 similar ones. In support of the dialogue between different stakeholders, working group meetings were held, which also generated the collection of 15 Romanian good practices. Other 11 good practices and viable solutions were identified by the Romanian Environmental Center. Furthermore, a series of recommendation reports on energy efficiency, sustainable transportation and communication were generated both in Romanian and English, and are available for free download. They led to a position paper built around the three thematic areas of the project, emitted for the key central authorities. The project objective on capacity building was also successfully met through 3 dedicated training sessions (for the public, private and NGO sectors) and with the aid of the project’s Norwegian partner, through a study visit to Arendal, Norway for Romanian experts including members of the working groups.
Summary of bilateral results
The study tour and its capacity building focus was the main achievement in terms of bilateral cooperation. The Norwegian partner was also involved in analysing the recommendation reports generated by the project and suggesting ideas for the sustainability of the platform. The bilateral relations are to be strengthened either through a continuation of the Climate Forum or the development of new bilateral projects.