Project RESCCCUE: “REminding Slovenian authorities Climate Change Crisis requires Urgent Effort”

The project RESCCCUE aims at addressing the climate change action in Slovenia. We started the project in the autumn of 2019 when we have brought together over 100 leading Slovenian scientists, comprising meteorologists, climatologists, oceanographers, physicists, biologists, chemists, geographers, and others. Together we wrote an open letter to the Slovenian government: “A request of Slovenian researchers to take immediate action on improving the climate change mitigation and adaptation policy”. The open letter received extensive media coverage, as well as provoked a reaction from the political authorities and served as a kick-off for various subsequent climate change communication activities. We therefore continued with multiple media outreach and communication events, both jointly as a team and individually. This included appearances on the radio and television, interviews for newspapers and magazines, social media platforms, and popular scientific talks. We have thereby demonstrated that values such as a team spirit, mutual help and collaboration are crucial for far-reaching actions. All in all, the project strives to advance climate literacy and science-based policy making in Slovenia. Additionally, we also promote research in meteorology and climatology to the Slovenian youth (public talks for schools, summer schools, seminars). Although the project has already proved successful in igniting nationwide debate on  climate mitigation, RESCCCUE is a continuing, ongoing project. We are currently establishing an online platform called “Podnebnik” that will track climate action in Slovenia and allow an exchange of science-based views on climate change mitigation and adaptation. To do this, we have established connections with data scientists behind the very successful Slovenian Covid-19 tracker “Sledilnik” (sledilnik.org), and many other Slovenian agencies from the relevant fields, as well as other Slovenian scientists from across the globe. We firmly believe that this platform will help decision makers and the general public to understand the diversity of the climate change challenge and take meaningful climate action. Throughout the project we have developed valuable skills and experience in scientific communication. We hope that our project will inspire more scientists to engage in communication of climate change science and in debates on societal impacts of climate change.