On Friday 16th September we held the first event in the three-part Climate Change and Citizenship Café Scientifique series.  Café Scientifique is a global product under the British Council’s ‘Understanding Science in Society’ programme area. It aims to encourage debate about the impact of science on people’s lives. This collaborative series draws together the strands of science and society by considering climate change, what communities and individuals can do to address it, and the wider aspects of being a ‘global citizen’.

These events, a collaboration between the British Council Scotland Governance and Science teams, use video-conferencing technology to link countries – for this series, Scotland, Malawi and Lithuania. A speaker in Scotland makes an informal presentation at the beginning of the event, and then each audience spends half an hour over refreshments considering the issues and thinking of questions to ask. The groups then reconvene for an hour’s questions and debate.

This first café focused on the realities and implications of climate change. The speaker was Dr Dave Reay, of Edinburgh University, and the event was facilitated by BBC Scotland’s Heather Reid.

The audience in Scotland included environmental group and university lecturers. They were joined by a group of 15 activists in Malawi, and 60 students in Lithuania. Each country had different concerns over the implications of climate change – Lithuanian participants were concerned with energy provision and security, because of the cold climate, while the Malawian audience spoke of their fears regarding crops and food supply.

The next Café Scientifique will be held in late November. The subject will be sustainability and how individuals and communities can make changes to their society for the good of the wider world.

To attend the next video conference in the Climate Change and Citizenship series, please contact Lucy.Young@britishcouncil.org or telephone +44 (0)131 524 5700.