For International Women’s Day 2025, NCWNZ Wellington Branch organised a climate-focused panel and workshop event "How to talk about climate action" with support from Council for International Development and UN Women Aotearoa New Zealand, and generous support from the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The event was an opportunity for fellow climate and gender activists to come together and discuss how to have positive grassroots conversations about climate action.

We started with a panel of fantastic speakers, sharing their experiences within grassroots campaigns and what lessons we could apply to a climate action movement through a gender lens. Massive thanks to:

• Rob Egan, Director at Piko Consulting
• Christine Langdon, Co-Founder of The Good Registry
• Annie Newman, Assistant National Secretary for E Tū
• Jemima Tito, Kaiārahi of School Strike 4 Climate Pōneke
• Aaron Packard, Communications Manager for the Environmental Law Initiative

The panel was followed by a workshop to discuss stakeholders, approaches, and more. It was acknowledged that women are often the leaders in climate action - someone suggested that we encourage fathers to become the ‘teachers’ in this space. There were so many more gems to come out of this session, here are just a few:

Having positive, grassroots conversations

• Make sure to highlight the small wins and tangible impacts.
• Take inspiration from campaigns that have had success overseas, but refer to local problems and opportunities, like local elections.
• Make it easy to make the choice by incentivising green choices and social responsibility.
• Be open and curious, respond rather than sell.

Campaign messaging

• Messages should be tailored for different audiences - meet people where they are at, make it relevant to them.
• News cycles are fast, so ongoing engagement and maintaining momentum is important.
• Build online echo chambers through platforms that people use on social media with short form content.
• Be consistent, so that people who don’t regularly think about climate change will start to see it and think about it.
• Be humorous!
• Be empowering.

Campaign design

• Build strong stakeholder mapping - who are the cheerleaders? How can you build a network that stretches across genders, sectors, ages?
• Make the most of whatever channel is available - from social media, to letters to the editor, to rallies and marches on the streets.
• Channel anger into hope, into action.
• Campaign sustainably - engage with groups and communities, rather than individuals.
• Develop contributors to the cause by supporting their skill growth and showing appreciation.

NCWNZ Wellington Branch is hosting a follow-up workshop to draft a set of climate-related questions that we want to pose to candidates running for Wellington City Council. This event will take place on Monday, 26 May, 6pm - 7:30pm, at the Southern Cross Garden Bar Restaurant. We hope to see you there: register at https://events.humanitix.com/climate-and-the-city-council-workshop.

To read more articles from The Circular (March-April 2025) issue 651, click on the tag below.