THE RESILIENT40 CLIMATE CAFES
What is a climate café?
A climate café is a community-organised space for people to have open conversations about the climate crisis (including how it makes us feel). Every climate café is different: some might include unstructured discussions, while others could feature events and workshops. No two climate cafés look the same, yet they should all feel safe, open and accessible.
Why are climate cafés important?
Now, more than ever, we need spaces to host discussions about the climate crisis, how it affects us and the actions we need to take to tackle it. Individual actions alone won’t solve the climate crisis, but by coming together as a community, we can find comfort in our shared experiences, learn from different perspectives and model the world we wish to create.
How did the climate cafés start?
Every year, world leaders gather at the Conference of the Parties (COP) to assess progress on climate action. These meetings are important moments; yet only select groups of people are able to participate in them. In the run up to COP27 in 2022, we started our climate café initiative to provide a template for community-organised events. This wasn’t a new concept, but the first youth-led version. We produced a free and accessible guide that draws on our years of experience leading eco-anxiety research and facilitating climate conversations. We also launched a micro-grant scheme in collaboration with Force of Nature to support people who wanted to host a climate café but faced financial barriers. So far, hundreds of young people have participated in or hosted their own local climate cafés worldwide.
