© Dr. Oliver Ziegler via TiCCA4DANU’s LinkedIn Page
How can a city-region move from reacting to climate crises toward anticipating and preventing them? This question sat at the heart of TiCCA4DANU’s second Open Discovery Workshop, hosted over two days in the Burgas Municipality. Public authorities, crisis response actors, civil society and businesses came together to explore how different actors in the Burgas District can respond more effectively when a climate crisis strikes and, crucially, how they can prepare beforehand.
The Bulgarian National Adaptation Hub, operated by the Center for Energy Efficiency EnEffect, helped set the stage by connecting the workshop discussions to Bulgaria’s wider climate adaptation efforts. From that national frame, the conversation turned to the local level, examining everything from improving access to GIS data to strengthening collaboration at the municipal scale during climate emergencies.
A central moment came with a crisis simulation game built around a fictitious flood event. Participants stepped into the roles of municipalities, emergency services, civil protection and companies, working through the pressures of a fast-moving crisis. One lesson stood out clearly: climate risks do not respect administrative boundaries, and resilience depends on well-coordinated networks. These findings fed directly into the workshop’s ongoing discussions on how to strengthen a Burgas crisis response network.
The second day shifted focus to the private sector. How can companies prepare for climate risks? What role can parametric insurance play in cushioning the impacts? And how might public-private partnerships open the door to new solutions? These questions opened up a rich set of possibilities for shared responsibility and innovation.
Across both days, from GIS and crisis response through to insurance and public-private collaboration, the workshop was about connecting the pieces of the puzzle. The shift it pointed toward is a familiar but demanding one: moving from responding to climate impacts to anticipating, preparing and acting together.
© Dr. Oliver Ziegler via TiCCA4DANU’s LinkedIn Page
