European DACE Project “Discussions and Actions on Climate and Environment”
Nov 2022 / Nov 2024
Raising European citizens' awareness of climate change policies and legislation
An overall six environmental law organizations from Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Slovenia, and Spain joined forces under the umbrella of the Project “Discussions and Actions on Climate and Environment” (DACE) to address jointly climate issues and law. The project is funded by the European Union and coordinated at EU level by the association Justice&Environment.
The DACE Project is intended to support the climate goals of the European Green Deal and the EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change.
Objectives
The DACE project aims to raise EU citizens' awareness of climate change policies and legislation. In particular, the project focuses on climate change adaptation - mitigation is addressed in a cross-cutting manner - and citizens' climate rights in the legal systems of the six participating EU countries. To achieve this objective, the DACE project intends to carry out the following activities:
- Public opinion surveys
Opinion surveys will be conducted in each Member State to gather public opinion and perceptions on climate change.
- National events
National events will also be held in each participating Member State targeting relevant stakeholders - the general public, environmental NGOs, environmental lawyers, students, journalists and other interested parties - to raise awareness and discuss climate change adaptation issues in each country. In Spain, a total of 3 events are planned.
- Final event at international level
Holding of an international closing event of the project. This event will be attended by the environmental law organizations involved, national stakeholders and representatives of the European Commission. The event will also seek to share experiences and views on climate change adaptation and the recognition of climate rights in the different territories. These results will be communicated to decision-makers at the European level for their consideration.
- 1 set of advocacy submission
Participants
The International Institute for Law and Environment (IIDMA) is the organisation in charge of the coordination and implementation of the project in Spain. The other participating organisations at the European level are:
- Justice & Environment(coordination at EU level)
- BlueLink(Bulgaria)
- Environmental Management and Law Association(Hungary)
- Estonian Environmental Law Center(Estonia)
- PIC(Slovenia)
- Ökobüro(Austria)
Expected outcomes
The results of the DACE project are expected to have an impact at EU level and thus on the national climate change adaptation policy of the six participating Member States.
These results will take the form of: 6 public opinion surveys, 6 legal analyses on climate change and climate rights, a total of 17 national events (and related reports), 1 event at international level and 1 set of legal support.
It is also foreseen that the Project’s actions will reach the following:
- At least 18 thousand EU citizens in the project countries and 10 thousand more in other Member States.
- Direct participants (appr. 100 per participating Member State) will benefit from being engaged in climate policy shaping.
All the information on the development of the actions, progress and results of the DACE project will be available to the public through different communication actions in the media and social networks, as well as on IIDMA´s and Justice&Environment websites.
Public opinion survey “Knowledge and Perception of Climate Change in Spain”
As an activity part of the DACE project, IIDMA publishes the polling study “Knowledge and Perception of Climate Change in Spain“, commissioned to the external agency “Take A Tip”. The survey, carried out from 18 March to 19 April, gathers the opinion of 750 people representative of the Spanish population about climate change and its impacts, as well as their knowledge regarding climate legislative and policy instruments, measures and actions being adopted in Spain.
The survey´s methodology includes different criteria such as gender, age, location (rural or urban), level of study and employment situation of the respondents.
The complete opinion survey is available (in Spanish) here.
Presentation event of the “Discussions and Actions on Climate and Environment” (DACE) project
During the event, various legal solutions to the climate crisis at the international, European and Spanish levels were presented, emphasizing the need to increase our capacity to adapt to climate change.
The results of a new public opinion study on the knowledge and perception of climate change in Spain were also presented, showing the concern of the public about this climate phenomenon.
This report summarises the event and the main disussions and outcomes achieved.
Event: ‘Climate rights and climate advocacy ¿How to address climate change in the courts and in the media?’
This second event in Spain was a success as it achieved the participation in-situ of 58 people.
The event helped to disseminate and broaden knowledge of journalists and students on the legal-institutional framework on climate advocacy and climate rights of citizen.
More information, here.
During the event, the report prepared by IIDMA was presented: ‘Climate rights: legal mechanisms for climate advocacy in Spain’.
Event: Climate Rights and Legal Mechanisms for Climate Advocacy
The third and last DACE national event in Spain took place at the Madrid Bar Association (ICAM) on 26 June. The meeting, which aroused great interest, was attended by IIDMA director Ana Barreira; senior lawyer at the Registry of the European Court of Human Rights Natalia Kobylarz; Gómez-Acebo y Pombo partner Ana Martínez-Pina; Ontier senior associate Miguel Fernández Benavides; and member of the Advisory Board of the Environment and Climate Section of ICAM and partner of the Public and Regulatory Law department at Gómez-Acebo & Pombo, Santiago Garrido.
More information, here
