Update on One Future

The One Future local climate action groups that we support are going from strength to strength! If you would like to get involved by joining a local group in your area you can sign up here.

We have just finished our One Future Summer Series - a series of action focused online workshops and meetings enabling connection, learning and exploration of ways to take action on climate change at a local and national level. The series consisted of a number of different events.

These included regional meetings to give people a chance to connect with others in their local area who are taking action on climate change. Participants discussed what actions they had been taking over the previous months and shared reflections, challenges and learnings with each other. These regional meetings also provided space for discussion around the values underpinning climate action work locally and nationally and exploring some of the roots of the climate crisis.

Our “Linking in Locally” workshops connected One Future groups with people from their local environmental networks. It provided space for participants to learn from each others and get to know each other at a local level.

Our “What’s next?” event invited participants to explore upcoming local, national and international moments in the climate policy landscape. Policy experts were on hand to outline upcoming events and answer questions. Participants identified COP 26, agriculture, the media and local climate action plans as issues they would like to take action on.

We were delighted to be joined by Jeroen Robbe from LABO - a Belgian training organisation - to give a participatory workshop on Group Dynamics. This workshop explored how effective groups work. Participants were encouraged to reflect on what effective groups are like and think about issues that arise in their own groups. They also explored how they could start discussing and addressing problematic power dynamics within groups.

Don’t forget - if you’re not already involved in a One Future group you can sign up to join your local group here.

One Future is the network of local climate campaign groups supported by Friends of the Earth and Stop Climate Chaos. It is the network to join if you want to deepen your climate campaigning and take the next step after emailing your TDs or signing our petitions. The One Future network will help connect you with other people living in your area who are concerned about climate change and who want to take collective action with other people in their constituency.

We’ve been running a One Future Autumn Events Series of online webinars and workshops for One Future groups over the last few weeks and months.
These included a Town Hall Information Session, where Rob Hamilton from Cork Climate Action shared his experience of running Town Hall events to engage local TDs on climate issues. Rob had some useful tips to share on how to use town hall events as a campaigning tool and increase political support for climate action. We also explored how One Future groups could run town hall events with their own TDs. A recording from this event is available to watch back here.

We’ve also run events to ask“what’s next?” for climate campaigning. In late September we hosted a webinar to examine the climate policy and campaigning landscape ahead of us for the next few months. Issues covered included the upcoming Climate Action Plan and carbon budget, COP26, Just Transition and big decisions the Government faces on fossil fuels and renewables. This webinar is available to watch back here at this link. This event was followed by a planning workshop where One Future members did some brainstorming together, made some plans and connected with other members of the One Future network.

Our Autumn Series also included workshops to support climate campaign groups to create great dynamics within their groups and build happy, sustainable campaigning communities. We also explored international climate justice issues, with Kenyan eco-feminist, activist and researcher, Ruth Nyambura.

If you’d like to join One Future events like this you can sign up to the One Future mailing list at this link to get information on upcoming events and action opportunities.