With the Palermo stage, and in the context of the Earth Day Med festival, the new assembly of Building Bridges aims to focus on a reflection about how the Mediterranean region can be a laboratory to overcome climate diplomacy to overall climate borders.
Climate crisis will be one of the main drivers for the movement of people in the next incoming years, and the Mediterranean region is both a space of unity and division. Over the millennia, similar weather conditions, trade and exchanges forged a shared culture and sense of belonging. The region still maintains significant strategic importance for global security, geopolitics, trade and economic development. However, it is characterized by great diversity at political and governance level, uneven economic development and high degree of inequalities and a complex security environment.
The region is recognised to be a hotspot of climate change. Countries face similar worsening climate risks: high temperatures, extreme droughts and water scarcity, extreme wildfires, sea levels rising. The impacts of climate change have huge repercussions on economic growth, trade, social and political stability. Worsening climate impacts can become a major security risk for both regional and global stability, if they trigger mass migration, mass unemployment of a very young population and contribute to radicalisation, new conflicts and the backsliding of the democratic transition.
In the next Building Bridges assembly, we want to put our attention in the role of cities, institutions and activists and the importance of networking to find shared solutions to common problems. We will discuss with experts, civil society actors, artists, civil servants, migrants, farmers and citizens about the challenges of inclusive ecological planning through food, water and energy and how it impacts our understanding of borders today.
The assembly will also see the presentation of the conclusions and results of previous assemblies and a presentation of the roadmap for the upcoming months from citizens’ assembly experts.
REGISTER HERE
The program will be released in the next few weeks.
International participants are welcome, with priority given to participants from Poland, Greece, and Italy.
Building Bridges is a project funded by the EU.