Heat as Vulnerability, Knowledge as Adaptation: A Youth-Led Framework for Climate Resilience in Europe

Extreme heat is among the fastest-intensifying climate hazards in Europe. Beyond temperature spikes, it reduces labour productivity, strains energy and health systems, and exposes inequalities in access to cooling, shade, and resilient urban design. Heatwaves are therefore not just physical events but socio-economic vulnerability multipliers. Effective responses require more than forecasting—they demand governance that integrates scientific knowledge with lived experience and social capacity.The EU Future is Climate (EFIC) project addresses this challenge by treating young Europeans as co-producers of climate adaptation knowledge. Its 2026 Metaforum convenes 27 youth delegates, one from each EU Member State, to explore heat as both a lived phenomenon and a policy problem. The project examines whether structured, participatory deliberation can strengthen adaptation by connecting scientific evidence, local experience, and policy-oriented insight.EFIC uses a four-stage process:Stage 1: Common Knowledge Ground – Delegates receive training in climate-risk science, EU adaptation policy, and socio-ecological vulnerability, establishing a shared baseline across countries.Stage 2: Collective Comparison of Heat Impacts – Participants exchange local examples of heat stress—urban heat islands, occupational exposure, infrastructure failures, and ecological impacts—highlighting patterns of vulnerability across Europe. This phase emphasises comparative insight rather than formal mapping.Stage 3: Deliberation and Adaptation Pathways – Using shared evidence, delegates co-develop strategies including labour protections, public-health preparedness, urban cooling measures, early-warning systems, and nature-based resilience solutions. The focus is on creating an equitable and heat-resilient Europe.Stage 4: Policy Output – Participants refine proposals into recommendations for EU-level actors, demonstrating how participatory analysis can feed directly into institutional adaptation planning.Preliminary evaluation shows notable gains in climate-risk literacy, clearer understanding of vulnerability mechanisms, and increased confidence in policy engagement. Delegates demonstrated the ability to translate personal observation into collective assessment and actionable recommendations, highlighting that well-structured participatory processes can generate usable knowledge even without full datasets.EFIC’s contributions are twofold. First, it provides empirical insight into how young Europeans perceive heat risk and identify adaptation gaps. Second, it presents a method for integrating distributed, experience-based knowledge into climate governance as structured, comparative evidence rather than anecdote.As Europe faces intensifying heatwaves, resilience depends not only on technical forecasting but on society’s ability to interpret risk, recognise inequity, and co-design responses at scale. EFIC demonstrates a scalable approach for embedding youth agency, transdisciplinary learning, and equity awareness into climate adaptation—offering a pathway to co-produce heat resilience that empowers the generation most affected by future climate hazards.