Tuesday September 24th 2024
Written by Midlothian View Reporter, Luke Jackson
With Scotland’s Climate Week taking place 23-29 September people living and working in and visitors to Midlothian Council are being asked to share their weather stories as part of a project looking at climate change impacts across South East Scotland and how to respond to them.
Through Climate Ready South East Scotland’s online story map people can add their experiences of how weather is having an effect on their communities, day to day lives, and livelihoods.
The project is led by charity Sniffer, in partnership with six local authorities, including Midlothian Council to support collaborative climate action in the region. It’s looking at the risks and opportunities from climate change for South East Scotland to guide what action is needed respond to these and produce a risk assessment. Gathering details from people about how they are being impacted is vital to ensure the responses suggested meet the needs of communities and help to build their resilience.
Climate change is already having an impact here as recent extreme weather such as Storm Babet in autumn 2023 and the highest temperature recorded in Scotland happening in summer 2022 show. In future there is likely to be more extreme weather like this with hotter, drier summers, wetter winters, and rising sea levels.
These changes are being felt by communities across South East Scotland and the project is gathering evidence of this and how prepared the region is for it. This is being done in two ways; a formal call for organisations, sectors and communities to share any assessments they have done on these issues, and the online story map asking people to contribute their experiences to capture the realities for those whose lives are being impacted by the changing weather.
Stories are added to the map by search for the location of where it occurred or placing a pin on it, and then answering a few short questions about it covering what took place and what could be done to help respond to it.
Photos can also be added. The project is also working with the region’s community climate action hubs on a programme of events and activities to help communities share their stories and explore solutions to our climate challenge.
As well as the story map there is a formal call for evidence for the risk assessment. Here the project is asking for any climate risk and opportunity assessments that have been done by or for organisations, sectors or communities in South East Scotland to be share. This could include resilience plans, planned asset upgrades, or major new development and investment plans which could affect vulnerability and exposure to climate risks.
Cllr Dianne Alexander, Cabinet Member for Community Facilities, Climate Change and the Environment, said: “Midlothian Council endorses the story map project and we are encouraging all residents to get involved and share their stories of how the changing weather is impacting their local communities.
“After declaring a Climate Change emergency in 2019, we are committed to working towards our Net Zero targets and making Midlothian a great, green place to grow.”
Cat Payne, Senior Climate Resilience Manager at Sniffer said: “As we look at the risks and opportunities South East Scotland is facing from climate change, it is really important that we hear from local people about how our increasingly unpredictable and extreme climate is affecting them. Communities know the places they care about best. They are the ones witnessing how weather affects them and how this might be changing over time.
“We’re asking for people to share their experiences with us, whether it be: flash flooding on local roads or parks, buildings needing more regular maintenance, changes at the coast from high tides and storms, or summer heat making places of work uncomfortable – if the climate is affecting you, your community, your place – we want to know about it. Please take a moment to let us know about it by adding your experiences to our story map.”
The story map is open until 20th December 2024 and stories can be added here: https://climatereadyses.commonplace.is/en-GB/map/climate-ready-south-east-scotland-story-map
The deadline for formal evidence submissions is 27th September 2024. Details of how to provide submissions to this can be found here: https://climatereadyses.org.uk/call-for-formal-evidence-for-crses-now-open/
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