Best Climate Solutions 2018 Award
on “Communicating climate change threats and opportunities”
JURY’S JOINT NOTE
Venice (Italy), 4 December 2018 – The final results of the Best Climate Solutions 2018 Award were announced in Venice, during the third edition of the Festival for the Earth.
Out of over 100 applications received, 42 proposals were admitted to the competition and evaluated through a process including two parallel phases.
The 42 admitted candidates came from very different countries and contexts, drawing an inspiring landscape of bottom-up initiatives innovating climate change communication through art, fiction, journalism, gaming, education, advocacy and the use of digital channels and tools. The majority of proposals was received from Europe and North America, but applicants also came from African, Asian and Latin American countries.
The two-fold evaluation process included the assessment of the international Jury and a public polls phase open to the Best Climate Solutions online community.
Considering both the online polls’ results and their aggregated assessments, the Jury members unanimously agreed on the Award’s final results.
The international Jury of the Best Climate Solutions 2018 Award composed of Jessika Berns (Green Growth Knowledge Platform, GGKP), Marco Cattaneo (National Geographic Italy), Marion Ferrat (formerly IPCC Working Group III), Liliana Hisas (Fundación Ecologica Universal, FEU-US), and Kenneth Weiss (Pulitzer Prize, Festival for the Earth) has decided to confer the awards as follows:
The project Climate without Borders has been selected as the winner of the Best Climate Solutions 2018 Award. Set up in 2018, Climate without Borders is a new organization building a global network of renown weather presenters through which reaching a huge public and spreading independent and accurate information on climate change. It ranked first in the online voting and scored high in the jury’s assessment.
The Jurors agreed in respecting the result of the online voting, recognizing the potential of the project, which involves a very popular category of professionals such as weather presenters, whose active role in conveying information on climate change causes and impacts can represent a key step in reaching the general public. The Jurors also agreed to encourage the project’s proponents to further develop and consolidate channels and collaborations with scientists and scientific organizations to ensure the accuracy of the messages the project will deliver.
According to the Jury, Climate without Borders is “a new, strong project with a high impact potential, that acknowledges the need to set up training opportunities for weather presenters to learn more about climate science, communication, policy, and action. Most weather presenters are experienced meteorologists and communicators who are trusted sources of information to the public. As they operate worldwide, it is a great idea to develop an expanding peer-network of weather broadcasters who embrace science. As the project develops, it will be important to identify those who have the interest in joining such a network and provide resources and support so that they can have access to the latest scientific developments and communication tools”.
A Special Mention of the Jury was accorded to the project Climate Tracker. Climate Tracker is a youth-led organization with the aim of mainstreaming the topic of climate change in national media around the world by empowering young journalists and communicators, especially from the Global South. It scored high in the jury’s assessment and the jurors agreed it deserved recognition for its important mission of training the next generation of journalists.
The jurors considered Climate Tracker “an original initiative that is both inclusive and geographically broad. Bringing young journalists to international conferences and supporting them to focus more stories on climate change could help to build public knowledge on climate change and spread the news with a science-based approach. This initiative is growing and has already had an impact. It will hopefully encourage young scientists and journalists to engage in better communicating climate change and give citizens of the farthest-flung countries of the world the opportunity to make their voice heard”.
A second Special Mention of the Jury has been granted to the project Climate Feedback. Climate Feedback is a worldwide network of scientists assessing the credibility of climate change media coverage, with the goal of helping readers know which news to trust. It scored high in the jury’s assessment and the jurors agreed to recognize the effort of scientists addressing disinformation on climate change in the “post-truth” era.
According to the Jury, Climate Feedback is “a great initiative led by climate scientists. In the current media environment, widespread misinformation about climate change can be confusing to the public. This project could offer corrective influence in newspapers, magazine, and media in dozens of language, as well as help scientists understand the public discourse and provide answers to the questions that matter to the civil society”.