Twitter #KlimaChatA learning society: Can we draw lessons for climate protection from the crisis year 2020?

9 December 2020, by CSS

Photo: Chris J. Davis on unsplash

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On 6 January 2021, 9:30 - 11:30 a.m., CSS members Stefan Aykut, Anita Engels and Felix Schenuit will be ready to answer your questions concerning "Corona, Green Deal, #Fridays and the US elections - what do the social upheavals of 2020 mean for climate protection?".

The idea is straightforward: Simply tweet a question, mark it with the hashtag #KlimaChat and join the discussion! Questions can be answered either in German or English.

The year 2020 was associated with great expectations of progress in climate protection. The year before, an unprecedented wave of climate protests under the banner of #FridaysForFuture had put the issue at the top of the media and political agenda. At the global level, five years after the implementation of the Paris Accord, tangible action should follow, and new national climate plans should be presented at the UN climate summit in Glasgow.

But the climate policy debates in 2020 were eventually dominated by the Corona crisis. Unprecedented emission reductions due to the economic effects of the global lockdown were as much a topic as more or less "green" economic stimulus packages. The year finally ended with mixed feelings: a sharp rise in emissions, limited successes in green stimulus policies and numerous new pledges of climate targets shaped the year.

• Can we constructively build on last year's experience in climate policy in 2021?
• How have these far-reaching experiences shaped our social perception of global crises?
• Will civil society, business and industry find new ways of acting together?

Two hours of non-stop answers - with a focus on social aspects of climate change. Under the title #KlimaChat, experts from the Center for Sustainable Society Research (CSS) at Universität Hamburg in cooperation with klimafakten.de will answer questions from the Twitter community: on 6 January 2021, from 09.30 to 11.30 hrs.

Via the Twitter, the CSS will be available live for two hours to answer questions. The target group is the general public: every interested person is invited to ask a question via a Twitter message with the hashtag #KlimaChat during this time window, which will then be answered as directly as possible.
The following experts will answer questions during these two hours:

• Stefan C. Aykut (@StefanAykut), professor of sociology, especially ecological crises and conflicts and executive director of the CSS. Works on the global climate negotiations and global climate conflicts, as well as on the social debate on 'energy turnarounds', especially in Germany and France.
• Anita Engels (@Engels_Klima), professor of sociology and co-spokesperson of the CLICCS cluster of excellence "Climate, Climatic Change and Society". As a member of the Climate Protection Science Platform, she advises the German Federal Government. Her expertise relates to corporate strategies, especially in emissions trading, and to ways of creating an active societal support for climate policy.
• Felix Schenuit (@FelixSchenuit), political scientist at the Cluster of Excellence CLICCS, researches EU climate policy and follows the current political processes regarding the EU Climate Protection Act and the EU Green Deal. His work focuses on climate neutrality targets and the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere.

As a faculty research centre of the Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences at Universität Hamburg, the CSS aims to broaden the understanding of social and economic institutions and processes of modern societies with regard to sustainability. The main focus is currently on financial markets, policymaking and (global) governance, as well as communication and public spheres. The interdisciplinary research centre brings together researchers from sociology, political science, economics, communication science and criminology, among others.

The science platform klimafakten.de deals with questions and objections to climate research via in depth fact checking, among other things. But facts alone do not make for communication. And communication is not yet climate protection. For knowledge to become action, exchange and debate are needed. Another focus of the work of klimafakten.de is therefore to develop new ways and ideas for the social debate on climate change and climate protection.