Ahead of November’s crucial COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, communities across the UK will join together for the Great Big Green Week, organised by The Climate Coalition. The festival takes place during 18th – 26th September, and aims to be the largest event for climate and nature ever seen in the UK. Everyone’s invited!   

COP26 has already been delayed by a year due to the pandemic. It’s being billed as a pivotal moment in the fight against runaway climate change, at the start of what is a critical decade for our planet.  

The run-up to this year’s summit is the key period when countries update their plans for reducing emissions, which need to go much further than even the commitments made at the historic Paris summit in 2015, to retain any hope of limiting global temperature rises to 1.5 deg C.   

During Great Big Green Week community hubs will celebrate local activity, raise the profile of climate change, and show why it is so relevant to local communities and decisionmakers. It will also call on politicians to raise their ambition and champion urgent action on climate change.  

A growing number of organisations across Cumbria are already keen to mark the lead-up to COP, by running their own events and campaigns to raise awareness about what’s at stake.   

CAfS is inviting members of the Zero Carbon Cumbria Partnership and the Cumbria Sustainability Network to align relevant events and communications with the Great Big Green Week, which together we can then use to generate a real buzz around Cumbria, showcasing great examples of positive grassroots action.   

There’s loads for us to celebrate right across Cumbria, whether that’s community energy schemes, food growing, tree planting, repair and reuse initiatives such as Repair Cafes, arts & culture projects, green building, youth campaigning, and much much more.   

In these challenging times, events and campaigns can be either online, or a cautious return to carefully-planned physical events for those who feel able to do so.   

If you or your organisation are planning to run an event in Cumbria as part of Great Big Green Week then we’d love to hear from you! Contact [email protected] to find out how you can get involved.