EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: INSIGHTS FROM THE CLIMATE ACTION CONVENING
Leaders from across the Cooperative Extension System (Extension) convened in early 2024 to identify climate solutions that the Extension network is uniquely suited to deliver. For a deeper dive on each priority workstream, see the pages that follow.
The Extension Climate Action Convening and the National Climate Change Roadmap Publication of the National Climate Change Roadmap (Roadmap) in late 2023 served as the starting point for envisioning how the power of Extension might further be harnessed to address the climate crisis. The Roadmap was developed by researchers at Colorado State University and Meridian Institute with funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). It incorporates the expertise of 20 Extension Directors and other multidisciplinary experts from Land-grant universities across the country. Post-publication, the Extension Committee on Organization and Policy’s (ECOP) Climate Program Action Team (PAT) hosted a joint webinar with the authors of the Roadmap to explore its contents. Thereafter, Extension announced the Climate Action Convening, inviting national leaders in Extension climate change programming and encouraging them to review the Roadmap beforehand. Many of the Roadmap’s seven insights and all of the nine guiding principles align with the envisioned activities and outcomes contained within this white paper. Throughout the development of this white paper, Extension professionals repeatedly identified ways they could help address specific Roadmap insights and guiding principles. Quoting from the Roadmap, the aligned insights and guiding principles included:
Insights:
Systems-based Innovations
Participatory Research Processes
Strategic, Sustainable and Regenerative Agricultural Practices; and
Socioeconomic and Policy Research.
Guiding Principles:
Equity and Justice
Policy Relevance
Contextual Considerations
Risk and Vulnerability
Traditional Ecological Knowledge
Strategic Communications
Co-production with end-users
Systems thinking
User-centered
To view the Roadmap, visit the USDA-NIFA website.
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