About

About Climate Change Hub

The Climate Change Hub is a scalable multi-year initiative of three international institutions: Resilience Cities Catalyst (RCC), the Democracy & Culture Foundation (DCF), and Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), to advance progress toward climate transformation and recovery goals in Greece and the broader region of southeast Europe through cross-sectoral collaborative action that elevates community voice. It operates as an independent non-for-profit entity in the context of the program Resilience and Recovery in Greece and S.E Europe.

Our Vision

A fair and inclusive green transition driven by empowering civil society and local communities

With the firm belief that the answers to the many challenges of our time lie in the strengthening of democratic institutions and that all stakeholders must undertake a more active role towards the achievement of the green transition, the Climate Change Hub aims to bridge the gap between scientific evidence, public policy and the civil society, by empowering social responsibility and by providing the necessary tools and equal opportunities to citizens, agencies and all actors involved in climate change, so as to ensure a coordinated course of action across the board.

Our Mission

The Climate Change Hub’s mission is to contribute to the achievement of Greece’s national green transition and resilience goals, by enhancing cooperation, coordination and collaboration between government agencies, the civil society, and the scientific community. We address four fundamental challenges that are hindering the type of transformative action needed to achieve the ambitious EU climate resilience goals set forth:

• Lack of coordinated mobilisation of cross-sectoral and siloed actors

• Lack of citizens engagement in the green transition process.

• Significant capacity gaps at the local, regional, and national levels in delivering against ambitious goals.

• Fragmentation of best-available climate knowledge and data needed to develop and implement transformative catalytic solutions.

• Limited citizens’ involvement and a restricted participation of the civil society in green transition policies and action plans.

The Climate Change Hub aims to to strengthen democracy by empowering social responsibility.

Our Approach

Participatory design for resilient societies

We seek to implement a more flexible approach towards policy planning and implementation, by co-designing policy solutions that are based on our unique bottom-up mapping of actors and initiatives while offering international expertise and glocal (global with local partners) networking. It is through this multi-layered approach that citizens, local authorities, and members of the civil society are tangibly empowered and incentivized to undertake a more active role in the democratic public processes involved in the formulation of climate change and green transition policies, thereby becoming responsible and accountable for our future.

Our Goals

With a comprehensive action plan, we strengthen the green transition and local resilience by designing strategic interventions with the participation of both the state and citizens.

The goals of the Climate Change Hub are:

Dissemination of Information & Knowledge

It contributes to the dissemination of information and the enhancement of communication among stakeholders through the creation of an online platform (one-stop shop).

Designing Resilience Strategies

It accelerates the planning and implementation of transformation projects and resilience programs in cities across the country, and subsequently, in the broader region of Southeastern Europe.

Empowering Green Employment

It aims to inform and train young people about green jobs, with a particular focus on those living in vulnerable areas.

Strengthening Environmental Democracy

It helps in creatingan interconnected community that will take action at the national level.

Why now

The consequences of climate change, coupled with the impact of the Covid-19 crisis, have made it imperative for us all to reconsider the current socio-economic model that has long been identified as economic growth – through the lens of resilience. Immediate, prompt action and the development of the necessary tools are vital to address the challenges facing the global community.

The European Green Deal, NextGenerationEU and the new European Union Adaptation Strategy, the 12 legislative proposals of the Fit for 55 package, the REPowerEU plan, the Greek National Energy and Climate Plan and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, are all policy programmers that lead the way for the creation and implementation of climate resilience and recovery programs and policies.

The new Greek National Climate Law 4936/2022 (“Transition to climate neutrality and adaptation to climate change”) formulates the framework, sets the strategic direction, and paves the way towards climate neutrality for Greece by 2050. By virtue of its provisions, new competencies, and obligations are administered to various municipal and regional authorities – for such authorities to be able to live up to these newly administered competencies, specialized technical skills and effective tools and measures must be developed. This necessary transformative policy progress may be hindered however by the fragmentation of specialized knowledge, climate change data and scientific information. This prevailing impediment may be overcome if all invested stakeholders (citizens, municipal and central authorities, the private sector, academia, and civil society) work together in a synchronized, cooperative approach and coordinated course of action, towards developing innovative proposals and effective solutions.