Migrant Focus Group – Spanish Pilot

This case study is part of the Spanish pilot case study within the AGORA project. AGORA promotes societal transformation to empower local communities to address the climate crisis and aims to achieve this through a multidisciplinary, integrated approach and four pilot studies in Europe.

AGORA is a HORIZON Europe project started in January 2023. It supports the EU Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change.

Summary

This focus group session targeted migrants from various backgrounds to gather their perspectives and co-create solutions for climate adaptation, focusing on addressing the unique challenges they face due to climate change. This session worked to identify adaptation gaps, gather personal experiences, and evaluate engagement methodologies to ensure inclusive and effective participation in climate action. Some key issues that were identified included temperature variations, lack of infrastructure to handle extreme weather, and the importance of education and critical thinking to combat climate change denial. Participants also emphasized the need for effective and inclusive communication strategies to engage diverse groups in climate action.

Introduction

As part of a series of focus groups, the AGORA partner ibercivis held a session with migrants on June 24th, 2024 at the LAAAB (Laboratorio Aragón Gobierno Abierto) in Zaragoza, Spain. The focus group included 6 participants that represented the migrant community. These participants were all from Latin America. Migrants were used as the target audience for this session because of their unique vulnerability to climate change and the need to integrate their experiences and ideas into climate adaptation strategies. This session was organized into three activities and began with a short introduction and presentation on climate adaptation and its relevance to migrants.

Methodology

First Activity

After the introduction and presentation, participants took turns sharing their experiences with climate change and how it has affected their lives. They also described how climate change differed in Spain compared to their home country.

Second Activity

The second activity involved the co-creation and co-design of soft adaptation solutions and strategies. This activity used the 1-2-4-All technique, which had participants brainstorm ideas individually, then in pairs, and finally they presented and discussed their ideas with the group. The main ideas produced from this activity included implementing gender-oriented approaches in climate migration policies, developing policies that make renewable energy more accessible, improving rainfall cycles and mitigating extreme temperatures through reforestation, creating energy communities that co-create solutions for energy poverty, and emphasizing education to address climate change denial. From this list, education and reforestation were chosen as the most effective measures. Participants also emphasized that these adaptation measures could meet resistance from older adults and challenges may arise in reaching non-educated demographics.

Third Activity

The final activity had participants evaluate engagement techniques using the pair-and-share and role play methods. Engagement methods were discussed based on the adaptation solution identified in the previous activity: “Energy governance, actions against energy poverty and democratization of access to nature”. From this activity, participants emphasized the need to use related examples to show effective societal and policy collaboration. Some methods that the participants found effective included mobile training workshops and participatory decision-making processes. They felt that these engagement techniques were interactive and engaging with nature and displayed the ability to influence actual policies. Participants also felt that these methods would be successful in engaging diverse audiences. When using these techniques, the participants urged for the use of customized content and facilitators that could moderate the discussions to ensure inclusive dialogue.

Conclusion

This focus group collected the perspectives of 6 migrants in the Spanish pilot and created adaptation strategies and engagement techniques related to the extreme heat temperatures that are affecting the area. The participants also noted feeling skeptical about the potential for these solutions to be implemented. This further highlights the importance of engagement and inclusion in building trust between individuals and decision-makers.