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Description
According to the poll from the Climate Reality Project, 45% of the people of the Upper Silesia believe that a continued dialog between the people, specialists, NGOs, and the local government is necessary to achieve sustainable collaboration when working towards the green community. Simultaneously, due to the climate change, the Upper Silesia is facing a socio-economic transformation related to the coal mining and coal-fueled energy sector. The need for a change is related to the development of the European Union’s climate policy and the Paris Agreement commitments. We want to address these problems by engaging citizens and activists from the Upper Silesia in creating civic campaigns entitled ”Silesia without Coal.” We’d like to engage 70 citizens and three representatives of the local government of the Upper Silesia. We will create a space for dialogue and cooperation towards solutions pertaining to changes in the climate policy. Local and regional authorities, NGOs, representatives of business and citizens of the Upper Silesia will be engaged in the dialogue as well. We will organize six webinars for 20 activists. The meetings will focus on methods for civic participation and civic organizing, as well as workshopping civic campaigns. We’ll conduct a series of five academic seminars for activists and citizens of Upper Silesia and the members of the BoMiasto Association, the Upper Silesia Association, and the Silesia Climate Movement on the climate crisis, responsible economy and energy transition. These meetings will serve as an opportunity to build understanding, exchange experiences, and debate over the region’s problems. Selected participants will create three teams that will directly engage people from their communities and create the “Silesia without Coal” campaigns.
Summary of project results
According to the public opinion poll from Climate Reality Project, 45% of the Upper Silesia region residents believe that continued dialogue between the local population, NGOs and local governments is necessary to build a collaboration serving a community oriented towards environmental protections. Simultaneously, because of the climate change, Upper Silesia is facing an upcoming socio-economic transformation related to mining and energy produced from burning coal. The necessary changes will be the result of climate policies from the European Union and our commitment stemming from the Paris Accords. We have addressed these issues by engaging residents from the Upper Silesia region in creating civic campaigns entitled “Silesia Without Coal.” We have organized 5 scientific seminars for the activists from the Upper Silesia region and members of the BoMiasto Association, Upper Silesia Association, and Silesian Climate Movement. We talked about the climate crisis, responsible economy, and energy transformation. The meetings became an opportunity to build an understanding, to exchange experiences and have a discussion on the regions problem. Selected participants convened local groups in three cities – Mysłowice, Bytom, and Katowice. Together, they have created “Silesia Without Coal” campaigns. After a successful project, the group form Mysłowice plans to formally register an association, and we have conducted a training with the group to help them accomplish that goal. Finally, we organized a conference summarizing the project, where we have invited journalists and writers focused on ecology, the environment, renewable energy, and the society and we have presented the “Silesia Without Coal” manifesto.Initially, we have assumed the participation of 70 people active on behalf of the climate policy and just transformation. In the end, we have hosted 90 people. Additionally, we were able to direct two petitions to the local government of Mysłowice to conduct public hearings and comments on the plans to build the Brzezinka 3 coal mine. The third petition, addressed to the President of Katowice, is also concerned with public hearings and comments, but the signatures necessary to file the document continued flowing in after the conclusion of the project.
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