Climate Innovation Lab – A look back at the “Wake up weekend”

On 3-4 February 2018, as part of its activities in Environmental Research and Innovation (ERIN), the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) took part in the event “Climate Innovation Lab - Wake up weekend” at Neimenster Cultural Center (LU).

By organising the “Wake up weekend”, the Ministry for Sustainable Development and Infrastructure innovated to approach the development of measures to protect the climate. During a weekend, this “forewardlooking workshop” attended by citizens and experts yielded useful insights and innovative ideas with the aim to feed the Government’s climate protection measures.

More than a hundred of participants from the civil society, agriculture and the domain of transport and mobility were welcomed by Carole Dieschbourg, Minister for the Environment, and Camille Gira, Secretary of State for Sustainable Development and Infrastructure. All together, they had the opportunity to discuss Luxembourg’s key challenges in terms of climate change policy for 2030-2050, and to contribute to the joint development of innovative proposals that will benefit society as a whole.

About LIST's participation

The institute actively participated in the “Wake up Weekend” with LIST’s researchers Bianca Schmitt, Daniel Koster, Jürgen Junk, Laurent Pfister and Antonino Marvuglia attending different workshops, and with Philippe Delfosse who was co-leader of the sectoral workshop “Agriculture / Food".

Philippe Delfosse in collaboration with Stéphanie Zimmer from the Institut fir biologësch Landwirtschaft an Agrarkultur Luxemburg (IBLA) gave a presentation on facts and figures related to greenhouse gas emissions in the agricultural sector and indications on existing initiatives aiming at reduction of emissions such as biogas production from animal manure and organic agriculture. Philippe Delfosse is also in charge of the reporting step gathering the contributions from the participants and to be communicated to Ministry for Sustainable Development and Infrastructure.

For nearly two decades, LIST has run both fundamental and applied research on various challenges and issues related to global change (e.g. floods and droughts, crop diseases, impact studies). LIST’s experts from various fields of research participated in the various workshops held during the “Wake up Weekend” – feeding the discussions with their own experience and proposals for new research and policy avenues to be explored in the near future. 

What’s next? In order to complete the future climate plan, a second collaborative workshop will be organised on national governance of climate policy.

> For any question related to this topic, please contact directly Arno Biwer via e-mail.

> More info in French on environnement.public.lu.