COPENHAGEN, Denmark, July 11, 2021 (ENS) – The European Environment Agency is inviting photographers to capture what climate change looks like in Europe and how Europeans are coping with it by entering the photo contest Climate Change PIX by August 1.
Climate change affects our societies and environment in a host of ways. Tackling climate change requires cutting emissions to mitigate its worst impacts and adapting to those we cannot stop.
“Climate change may be one of the most complex issues we are facing today. However, solutions do exist to reduce our carbon footprint and protect us from climate change. Apart from infrastructures and technological advances, many of us are adjusting our lifestyles and learning to cope with some of the impacts, such as extreme temperatures,” the EEA says.
“We are in a climate emergency,” says Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC, often called simply UN Climate.
“We do have the Paris Agreement, which gives us guidance on how to get out of this emergency,” Espinosa said. “But the recent report on the Nationally Determined Contributions released just a few weeks ago shows that we are nowhere near the Paris Agreement goal of 1.5 degrees by the end of the century.”
“The data take us to less than a one percent reduction in emissions by 2030,” she said. “Science is telling us that reduction needs to be 45 percent.”
“We have only 10 years to go for deep transformations. These require decisions now,” Espinosa urged. “We’re talking about energy transition. Infrastructure. A change in mobility.”
World attention will be focused on the climate this year ahead of the COP 26 UN Climate Change Conference, hosted by the UK in partnership with Italy. Postponed last year due to the pandemic, the conferences will take place from October 31 to November 12, 2021 at the Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow, Scotland.
The EEA’s new photo competition Climate Change PIX aims to capture what is all around us – the changing climate and our responses to it.
Send the EEA your best photos by August 1 in four competition categories:
- Climate change impacts on nature
How does climate change affect our environment? Can you depict changes in air, land, water or wildlife?
- Climate change impacts on society
How does climate change effect the way we live? Can you show how it affects our health, lifestyles, built environment, or the economy?
- Societal solutions for climate change
From local communities to Europe-wide initiatives, we are cutting greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to climate change. Can you show this through your photos?
- Individual action on climate change
People are seeking low-carbon lifestyles and taking actions to cope with extreme weather. What does this look like where you live?
The competition is open to citizens of the 32 EEA member countries and six cooperating countries, including the 27 EU Member States, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia.
Submit your photos to the EEA using this form. https://europeanenvironmentagency.wufoo.com/forms/climate-change-pix/
All participants must be 18 or older. Read more about the competition rules and how to participate on the Climate Change PIX competition page. https://www.eea.europa.eu/about-us/competitions/climatechangepix/competition
Each of the winners in the four competition categories will receive a cash prize of €1,000.
The EEA will also give a special Youth Prize for the best picture sent by a young person and a Public Choice Award will be selected among all finalists through an online vote.
To determine the winners, the EEA will appoint a pre-selection committee of communication and environment experts that will select 30-50 finalists. These will be submitted to an external jury composed of environmental communication experts from across Europe, who will select the winners, with the exception of the Public Choice Award.
For the Public Choice Award, the finalist entries put forward by the pre-selection committee will be open to a public vote from September 1 to 15.
The winners will be notified by email and the official announcement of the winners will follow on September 20, 2021.
Featured image: Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through central Paris and other French towns calling on the French government and the international community to do more to tackle climate change. Oct. 13, 2018 (Photo by Jeanne Menjoulet)
