Pursuing a Climate Resilient and Net Zero Hull:

Academics, Policymakers and Youth Voices

Project summary

The Challenge

How can we ensure youth voices form part of the conversation about Hull’s climate future?

The Approach

This project brings together academics, policymakers, practitioners, and communities to vision a Climate Resilient and Net Zero Hull.

The Outcome

The exploratory workshops and climate dialogues will be used to develop an Action Plan for a Climate Resilient and Net Zero Hull.

Lead academics

Funded by

The Challenge

Climate change is the most urgent societal and environmental concern currently being faced. The urgency has been recognised internationally and locally in Hull and East Riding through council declarations of ‘climate emergencies’. To respond to this, there is a push for actions to reduce greenhouse gas contributions (i.e. net zero actions) and to prepare for predicted climate impacts (i.e. climate resilience actions). Both are necessary to address climate change, but are often treated separately. As a result, opportunities to achieve them through joint actions and plans are often missed.

The 'Pursuing a Climate Resilient and Net Zero Hull' project supports COP28 discussions and priorities relating to youth engagement and voice

Dr Steven Forrest

Lecturer in Flood Resilience and Sustainable Transformations

To address the climate emergency and aspire towards a climate resilient and net zero Hull, we need to foster and encourage discussions on the topic between academics, practitioners, policymakers, communities, and young people. Dialogues and spaces to engage on this topic can lead to the identification of opportunities and challenges in addressing the climate emergency in a way that also take into account the local needs and priorities of those in Hull.

The full research team

Dr Steven Forrest - Project Lead Lecturer in Flood Resilience and Sustainable Transformations
Dr Pedro Beltran-Alvarez Senior Lecturer in Health and Climate Change
Dr Ed Brookes Research Fellow - Heritage and Liveability
Dr Gill Hughes Senior Lecturer
Dr Aviv Kruglanski Researcher

The Approach

Pursuing a Climate Resilient and Net Zero Hull: Academics, Policymakers and Youth Voices takes a participatory approach to knowledge exchange, dialogues across sectors, and lived experiences. We aim to co-produce Hull-specific ‘Climate Dialogue’ maps with academics, policymakers and young voices through a set of exploratory workshops. These Climate Dialogue maps will then be used to support knowledge exchange across a range of different topics (e.g. climate resilience, net zero, health, amongst others) across academia, policy, practice and young voices in Hull. Based on this we will co-develop a Hull-based strategy for climate resilience and net zero.

Supported by a professional artist and hosted both at the University of Hull and at local schools, Climate Dialogue Maps will be co-created through exploratory workshops with academics, practitioners, policymakers, communities and most importantly youth voices.

A final workshop will utilise the maps to create a space for thinking about future visions of Hull, contributing to an Action Plan for a Climate Resilient and Net Zero Hull.

The Climate Dialogue Maps will be displayed at an exhibition at the University of Hull before moving across the city and back to the schools involved the project

The Impact

The exploratory workshops, the climate dialogue maps and the final workshop will create impact by co-developing an Action Plan for a Climate Resilient and Net Zero Hull. The plan, written collaboratively with diverse voices represented, will add clarity and innovation to the way Hull conceives of the concrete future steps to take in response to the climate emergency. The encounter between diverse voices, lived experience, professional experience and expertise will produce an action plan rooted in deep meaningful engagement and creative thinking outside of the box.

Discussions between academics, practitioners, policymakers, communities and youth voices at the workshops will hopefully be the starting point for future dialogues and actions on addressing the climate emergency. The involvement, and valuing, of youth voices in the project will engage the next generation in climate discussions and empower them to embed climate resilience and net zero when starting to shape the city around them.

The project supports the University of Hull’s civic agenda and Strategy 2030, which foregrounds social justice and environmental sustainability through People, Place and Partnership.