The director of the Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment, Sonia Castañeda, has participated in the opening session of the II Juan Antonio Rubio Memorial Energy and Environment Congress , entitled “The challenge of communication in the face of climate change”, which will be held on October 29 and 30 at the Faculty of Information Sciences of the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM).

In front of a large presence of Journalism students, Sonia Castañeda highlighted the complexity of “communicating the challenge of climate change”. In addition, he stressed that it is necessary to “value environmental communication”. According to the director of the Biodiversity Foundation, information in this area must combine scientific rigour and a message “that reaches people”. Something that is not an easy task and that, for this reason, requires the communication professional to be able to “face the challenge of communicating well day by day”.

He also stressed that every day there are a large number of developments in the field of legislation and institutions that environmental journalists should be aware of. In this sense, Sonia Castañeda has given as an example the projects for monitoring and adaptation to climate change supported and managed by the Biodiversity Foundation.

For their part, the Dean of the Faculty of Information Sciences of the UCM, Carmen Pérez de Armiñan Gracia-Fresca and the Director of the Department of Journalism II, Carmen Salgado Santamaría, have stressed the importance of specialization in environmental journalism, an area that today constitutes an opportunity for job placement.

The opening ceremony was also attended by the Director of the CIEMAT Energy Department, Ramón Gavela, to delve into the mechanisms available to address climate change, such as efficiency, energy saving and alternative energies.