Periodic Reporting for period 2 - CLISEL (Climate Security with Local Authorities (CLISEL) From insecurity takers to security makers: mobilizing local authorities to secure the EU against the impacts of climate change in Third Countries)
Reporting period: 2017-11-01 to 2019-04-30
CLISEL was a Horizon2020 Coordination and Support Action (May 2016 - April 2019), exploring the nexus between climate change, migration and security from the perspective of local administrations. The focus was on the security implications – at the local level – of human mobility linked to or overlapping with climate change. CLISEL’s overall objectives were to: 1) through a participatory process, understand the needs of local administrators and other stakeholders in relation to the issues addressed and envision tools to tackle them; 2) produce and disseminate knowledge (catering to EU, national and local policy-makers and analysts) on how local authorities can contribute securing Europe from the impacts of climate change in third countries and fostering multi-level preparedness; 3) enhance general awareness, disseminating scientific findings through materials and tools accessible to the broader public.
The project entailed two phases. In the first 18 months, CLISEL carried out a participatory case study focused on the Sardinian Region, reaching out the 377 Mayors with training activities and quantitative and qualitative research. Their position and needs vis à vis ‘climate induced migration’ were explored via a questionnaire, focus groups and workshops. In the second 18 months, the results emerging from the pilot case were disseminated to the broader European policy and research community via a set of interactive tools, publications and events. European and International institutions, both political and academic, showed great interest for CLISEL’s results, and the CLISEL team (which included Sardinian Mayors) was invited to events at: the European Parliament, the EC, CESE, CoR, UNHCR. Other institutions and actors were also reached, including ANCI (National Association of the Italian City Councils), the Sardinian Region, the Italian Judiciary, Europe Direct Information Center of the Campania Region. At this stage, CLISEL broadened the scope of its target and managed to involve also Mayors from other Italian and European regions.
All planned results were successfully achieved by the CLISEL Consortium. In the first phase, the pilot case-study in Sardinia offered invaluable insights into the perspective of local administrations and their concrete needs. Five workshops introduced the issues of climate change, migration, and security to Sardinian mayors, city councillors and delegates. The workshops provided participants with solid scientific grounds on climate change and its impacts, including on human mobility. Through the workshops, local administrators also developed analytical tools to reflect on their growing role in tackling complex problems such as migration and climate change, sharing with peers the challenges and opportunities they face. Their agency clearly emerged, not least through their ambition to “think for the future” rather than only focusing on “emergencies” such as migrants’ disembarkments and extreme weather events. In addition, eight focus groups with Sardinian Mayors, stakeholders and regional politicians were held in order to better reach the territories that had few attendees at the five workshops. A ‘Security Map’ of the Sardinian pilot case-study was then drafted taking into account information gathered from the analysis of the answers to the Questionnaire, from the workshops and the focus groups. The security map is key to understanding the concerns and needs that migration and climate change raise at the local level. The CLISEL Guidelines summarize the results of the CLISEL pilot case study and of the mapping exercise.
In the second phase of the project, a series of tools were produced to disseminate findings across a broader set of European Stakeholders. Master Modules: in the first part of the project 42 hours of training activities were provided to think up solutions to secure Europe from the impacts of climate change in third countries. The second Module of the Training activities was organized as a training module for local authorities and as an advanced training school on 12-14 December 2018 in Naples. The Online Courses were based on the main results achieved in each Work Package. They were crucial to disseminate the main CLISEL results to local governments that could not attend the previous training activities or that wanted to increase their knowledge. CLISEL organized 5 face-to-face seminars with European and International institutions such as UNHCR to channel the voices of the Mayors at the international level. A delegation of Sardinian Mayors travelled to Brussels and Rome to explain the needs of their and to propose their opinion on the possible policies. The impact of those seminars was momentous: the Mayors felt less isolated and their trust in the EU and international institutions increased; they gained a better view on the complexity of the nexus between climate change and migration policies. Three speed training sessions were organized, in Stockholm, Rome and Brussels, aimed at bringing the main results gathered with CLISEL to policy makers and other stakeholders who asked to gain better knowledge about the project. An Individual Leader level training session was organized in Turin with the cooperation and participation of representatives from the Piedmont region, the Metropolitan City of Turin, the Municipal City of Turin and several districts of the Municipal City of Turin, as well as Mayors from different municipalities. An academic paper on the perception of risk and (in)security related to migration and climate change was produced, based on the Sardinian case study and the conceptual framework developed in the first phase of the project. A non-academic brief, was produced to ‘translate’ the results of WP2’s work (both conceptual and empirical) and make it accessible to non-academic audiences. CLISEL Interactive Maps constitute the first mapping exercise specifically focused on migration, climate change and labour-related legal and political instruments from 25 countries from Europe, Latin America, Africa, South-east Asia and the Pacific Islands. This innovative instrument translates information fragmented in several sources making it accessible. The online Geo-Archive gathered a peer-reviewed selection of historical cases of environmental/climate change induced migration. It has contributed to CLISEL’s impact in capacity building for policy-makers by bringing a historical/humanities approach to the project with the aim of understanding the current socio-ecological crisis within a broader timeframe. The CLISEL Travel App is an instrument for transmitting CLISEL’s results and the tools of the CLISEL ToolBox developed through the different WPs. This original tool aims to inform, enable and enhance the communication and understanding among policy makers, of the topics related to climate change, migration and security. The Travel App also includes the Interactive Chart on Climate Change Security that translates the “security map” elaborated in the pilot-case study in an accessible way. The CLISEL website is a fundamental tool of dissemination and communication of CLISEL’s activities and outcomes. CLISEL also had an active presence on Twitter and Facebook. CLISEL representatives presented their work and results in about 80 events.
In the second phase of the project, a series of tools were produced to disseminate findings across a broader set of European Stakeholders. Master Modules: in the first part of the project 42 hours of training activities were provided to think up solutions to secure Europe from the impacts of climate change in third countries. The second Module of the Training activities was organized as a training module for local authorities and as an advanced training school on 12-14 December 2018 in Naples. The Online Courses were based on the main results achieved in each Work Package. They were crucial to disseminate the main CLISEL results to local governments that could not attend the previous training activities or that wanted to increase their knowledge. CLISEL organized 5 face-to-face seminars with European and International institutions such as UNHCR to channel the voices of the Mayors at the international level. A delegation of Sardinian Mayors travelled to Brussels and Rome to explain the needs of their and to propose their opinion on the possible policies. The impact of those seminars was momentous: the Mayors felt less isolated and their trust in the EU and international institutions increased; they gained a better view on the complexity of the nexus between climate change and migration policies. Three speed training sessions were organized, in Stockholm, Rome and Brussels, aimed at bringing the main results gathered with CLISEL to policy makers and other stakeholders who asked to gain better knowledge about the project. An Individual Leader level training session was organized in Turin with the cooperation and participation of representatives from the Piedmont region, the Metropolitan City of Turin, the Municipal City of Turin and several districts of the Municipal City of Turin, as well as Mayors from different municipalities. An academic paper on the perception of risk and (in)security related to migration and climate change was produced, based on the Sardinian case study and the conceptual framework developed in the first phase of the project. A non-academic brief, was produced to ‘translate’ the results of WP2’s work (both conceptual and empirical) and make it accessible to non-academic audiences. CLISEL Interactive Maps constitute the first mapping exercise specifically focused on migration, climate change and labour-related legal and political instruments from 25 countries from Europe, Latin America, Africa, South-east Asia and the Pacific Islands. This innovative instrument translates information fragmented in several sources making it accessible. The online Geo-Archive gathered a peer-reviewed selection of historical cases of environmental/climate change induced migration. It has contributed to CLISEL’s impact in capacity building for policy-makers by bringing a historical/humanities approach to the project with the aim of understanding the current socio-ecological crisis within a broader timeframe. The CLISEL Travel App is an instrument for transmitting CLISEL’s results and the tools of the CLISEL ToolBox developed through the different WPs. This original tool aims to inform, enable and enhance the communication and understanding among policy makers, of the topics related to climate change, migration and security. The Travel App also includes the Interactive Chart on Climate Change Security that translates the “security map” elaborated in the pilot-case study in an accessible way. The CLISEL website is a fundamental tool of dissemination and communication of CLISEL’s activities and outcomes. CLISEL also had an active presence on Twitter and Facebook. CLISEL representatives presented their work and results in about 80 events.