As the Scottish Government works towards achieving net zero by 2045, community actions and events such as Climate Week North East (CWNE) play an important role in turning concern into action.
The global crisis is discussed widely across the media, from international agreements, government targets, and corporate emissions. The scale can feel so enormous it can raise uncomfortable questions for individuals at home.
Individual action can make a difference
Governments and major corporations hold such significant power over emissions control and targets within the systems in which we live. It can often bring up the question – what difference can I make?
It is understandable that individual action can sometimes feel futile, yet the focus is not simply on what individuals can do alone. As CWNE returns this September, it focuses on what can happen when people, communities, and organisations come together.
This year’s theme, ‘Small steps for big impacts’, explores the idea that climate action does not have to begin with solving the entire crisis.
Collective action can be powerful
An individual can make environmentally conscious decisions, but community action has the potential to bring together people, ideas, knowledge, and resources.
Community action can also provide something that is sometimes missing from conversations about climate change: connection.
“There’s a power in together, in being together,” says Alison Stuart, CEO of NESCAN Hub, the organisation behind Climate Week North East.
CWNE provides a space to showcase the work already taking place across Aberdeenshire, from grassroots community projects to the work of larger organisations, universities, councils, and cultural institutions.
The aim is not to suggest that everyone must become an environmental expert. Instead, seeing what others are doing can make action feel more accessible.
Stuart describes the importance of people being able to see others involved in climate action and realise: “they’re just like me.”
For people unsure where they fit into the climate conversation, and as we think about future generations, that realisation could be an important first step.
Change in Scottish targets
In April 2024, the Scottish Government announced that it planned to scrap its 2030 climate commitments, because they couldn’t be met within the time frame and hadn’t met the targets they had set. Instead, they moved to a five-year carbon budget approach. Environmental organisations including Friends of the Earth criticised the decision. Stop Climate Chaos Scotland (SCCS) brought together 70 civil society, environmental and faith organisations to press the government for a fair and fast transition, while Friends of the Earth Scotland organised large climate marches in Glasgow.
Against the backdrop of missed targets, political debates and large-scale climate activism, it is perhaps understandable that individuals can feel powerless about their own ability to influence change.
Where to start?
For someone who cares about the climate crisis but does not know where to begin, that can become another barrier.
Seeing people acting in their own communities may make the first step feel less intimidating, which is exactly what CWNE intends to build. It’s about getting people to understand that they can do something, and then supporting them to do it. It’s about showcasing the incredible things that are going on to create motivation and inspiration.
The emotional impact of climate change is also becoming harder to ignore. News about extreme weather and biodiversity loss can create further feelings of anxiety, fear, or helplessness, which can often prevent action as the problem can feel too big to solve.
Scotland is also facing significant environmental challenges. The State of Nature Scotland report highlights continuing pressures on biodiversity, while the climate crisis, pollution and inappropriate development all contribute to environmental decline. Rising temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns are also expected to have significant consequences for communities and ecosystems.
Community-led initiatives can provide one way for people to become involved in conversations and action surrounding Scotland’s transition to net zero.
Community action may offer a way through
Creating spaces where people can come together, share ideas, and discover they are not alone in their concerns may be an important part of the process. Aberdeen Climate Action is where the idea began, with a monthly climate café that provides opportunities for people to have conversations. These events can introduce people to achievable, practical ideas and projects that are already happening around them.
It doesn’t come without its challenges, though. Critics argue that encouraging changes in behaviour can place too much responsibility on individuals, while governments and larger corporations continue to make decisions that have far greater environmental consequences.
But shifting the guilt entirely onto individuals shouldn’t be the way forward. Not everyone can afford an electric car, solar panels, heat pumps, or make expensive changes to their home.
The wider structure of society does not always make climate-friendly choices easy. Instead, access to sustainable food, transport and reliable information can all influence the choices people are realistically able to make.
This is why the conversation cannot simply be about telling individuals to “do better”. Climate action requires larger structural and political change.
Community action can play a different role in bringing people together with local projects and knowledge to create pressure for wider change and make their voices heard.
A local conversation about a global problem
The climate crisis may be global, but its effects and challenges involved in responding to them are experienced locally. In North East Scotland, that conversation has an additional dimension.
The region has a long and significant relationship with the oil and gas industry. For many people, conversations about a transition towards a lower-carbon future are therefore also conversations about jobs, livelihoods and the future of communities.
A transition that is environmentally necessary but leaves communities behind risks creating further division. A more diversified economy, rather than placing all the region’s hopes in one sector, reminds us that responding to climate change is not simply about reducing emissions but also asking what kind of future communities want to build.
And perhaps that is where local involvement becomes particularly important.
Showing what community action actually looks like
One of the strengths of an event such as CWNE is that it challenges the idea that climate action is just one thing. There are so many ways to get involved, such as individuals learning practical skills or joining a local project. Even attending a talk or meeting people who have similar thoughts and concerns.
CWNE offers the opportunity to learn more about nature and biodiversity, explore sustainable ways to live, and perhaps think differently about food, while also providing an environment where people can have genuine conversations.
The question remains: can small, local actions really make a difference to a global crisis?
Perhaps taking small steps is more realistic and, when enough people take them, those actions can begin to connect.
When the climate crisis feels too big to tackle alone, that may be exactly where we need to start.
Climate Week North East takes place from 19 September to 4 October 2026 across Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire.
