Imagine a world 4.4 degrees warmer than pre-industrial levels by the end of the century: this is one of the predictions in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report 2023, which contemplates a scenario of continued rising emissions without immediate climate action, unless you have fully analyzed and understood the climate models, it is unlikely that you can truly envisage the situation and grasp its severity. This is because the environmental crisis is caused by overconsumption, CO2 emissions and greedy businesses, but it is also and above all a matter of miscommunication. If for too long data has locked environmentalists into a news niche, at last the use of storytelling, then a more empathetic and engaging narrative, has the ambitious goal of generating a unified global response to the climate crisis. Unlike numbers, stories are able to elicit an emotional response, harnessing the power of motivation, imagination and personal and shared values, which drive the most powerful and permanent forms of social change.
This has been sensed and understood by the International Telematic University UNINETTUNO, which presented on December 8 at Cop28 in Dubai the new edition of the academic path, Reporting Climate Change - Microcredentials for International Journalists, realized in partnership with Copeam (Permanent Conference of the Mediterranean Audiovisual Operators) and the support of the Ministry of University and Research and which will allow journalists from the public media in the Mediterranean area, Middle East and North Africa to access an international academic training course delivered by an Italian university in order to certify their professional skills on climate change issues through e-learning classes in English, Arabic and French in the form of Short Learning Programs, i.e., acknowledge and professionalizing short academic courses.
UNINETTUNO was invited to present the project at the COP28 works, during the conference organized by the Arab Republic of Egypt to present the best initiatives in the field of climate change awareness, with the paper "Educating on climate change and its significance to climate action" through which Nicola Paravati, Director of Institutional Relations of UNINETTUNO and coordinator of the project, presented the details of the course of study, underlining how the program is the result of an intensive international collaboration started four years ago, which saw in particular Italy and Egypt join forces to realize vocational training courses aimed to communication operators.
"In order to deal with climate change we need to understand it," explains UNINETTUNO Rector, Maria Amata Garito, "for this reason through Reporting Climate Change we provide a technological platform and educational offers and act as promoters of the knowledge that is indispensable to consciously deal with the complex challenges that climate change will increasingly pose us from now on.”