Dear EU islands community,

Welcome to the Clean energy for EU islands newsletter! The guest editorial below is the first one in a series of editorials written by our Regional Partners.

The Friday morning ferry to the Danish island of Samsø was full. That is not unusual ahead of a weekend. But on the last weekend of August, many travelled to Samsø to join the island residents in Folkedybet, a two-day experiment initiated by the Samsø Energy Academy, which invited the local community to a green party and a conversation about the future of the island.

That mindset of inclusion was also the starting point of the process back in the late 1990s, which led to the first transformation of its energy system and made Samsø a brand name worldwide. Being recently awarded the ‘Climate Leader’ award by the UN at COP26 was a reminder of a past that Samsø is proud of and that pops up every now and then in the rearview mirror. But what is of interest now is how Samsø evolves in its green transition, expanding the conversation from ‘energy’ to the much more abstract ‘climate’ while at the same time handling what’s at people’s hearts: the sea, the landscape and the life on the island.

Folkedybet means curiosity and an opportunity to look deep into what people are thinking and concerned about. In an island community, we must practice talking to each other about; both what works, what should grow and what should be pruned or removed to create local solutions together, and fertilise the future, so that the community grows. By redesigning the old experiment, the Samsø Energy Academy once more invited people to a party to define a new conversation, listen to their own thoughts and others, and hopefully manifest suggestions on how WE locally, together, can look the future in the eye.

Alexis Chatzimpiros - Project Manager, Samsø Energy Academy

In the last 20 years, storms on the island have become increasingly dangerous for its inhabitants. Anna and Sophie returned home quickly after seeing black clouds on the horizon. On the next day, the girls are shocked about the damages the heavy rain caused. In the evening, they meet at Anna's grandmother's place to talk. This overwhelming feeling of hoplessness overcame Anna, despite whitnessing the island's efforts to mitigate CO2 emissions. She says: "Why are we even still trying? We can't do anything about climate change anyways!", feeling eco anxiety is a perfectly normal reaction to being told that we're in a climate crisis. Sophie responds: "I think we shouldn't give up on hope so easily, we need to all work together." Just now, Anna's grandmother enters the room: "Don't worry Anna. Didn't you notice? People are starting to become aware of their actions. More and more people join us in the fight against the climate crisis. Our neighbour island, you can see it from the port, just started to build a big PV plant and they often come here to talk to us because they want to know how we made the switch. They felt inspired by us!" Sophie's face lights up: "That's awesome! So, the island even has an impact beyond just saving emissions." Anna feels a spark of hope in her heart: "Maybe, we can help to spread the word and inspire more people. Then, they could sign a pledge! To show that they really mean it and they want to change something." Sophie is excited: "That's such a cool idea. We should work on this.". Through this idea, Anna's eco-anxiety started to vanish because she felt like she could have an impact on how things go. Talking about her feeligs made her feel much better after all.