If the climate crisis teaches us anything, it’s that resilience begins close to home. From conserving green spaces that cool neighbourhoods, to fostering social networks that help us withstand fires, floods, and heat waves, the connections we nurture locally shape how well we adapt to a changing planet around the globe. Civic engagement and climate advocacy can no longer be understood as separate from each other – they are one and the same. Communities that learn, plan, and care for one another not only strengthen environmental resilience but also empower residents to see themselves as active agents of change in building a sustainable future.
This spirit of connection took form this past September in Nanaimo. Over the course of a two-day free event, neighbours became collaborators and ideas became blueprints for action. The Nanaimo Climate Action Hub invited the community to ask: What does it mean to act locally in a global crisis?
Community members fill the room at Nanaimo’s Climate Connections 2025 Summit for Solutions & Action .
While this question was grounded in the realities of Nanaimo (a coastal city already confronting climate-related challenges from wildfire smoke to rising seas), it resonates far beyond Vancouver Island. In British Columbia and across Canada, local organizers (including our Community Climate Hubs!) are realizing that community connection is the backbone of resilience. When people gather to learn and dream together, they build the social infrastructure that makes every other kind of climate solution possible. Ultimately, it’s these networks of trust and collaboration that empower ordinary people to do extraordinary things for their communities and the planet.
Growing a movement through connection
When the Nanaimo Climate Action Hub decided to dream bigger, they weren’t sure who would show up.
After years of cozy monthly Climate Cafés — a handful of tables, familiar faces, shared ideas — the Hub took a leap. They booked a large venue, invited respected climate experts, and called on their community to come together for an ambitious new initiative titled “Climate Connections 2025: Summit for Solutions and Action.”
Following six months of planning for the two-day event, Wellington Hall was buzzing on September 12 and 13. More than 250 people from Nanaimo, Campbell River, Victoria and even across the Strait in Vancouver filled the room. Long-time activists, youth leaders, Indigenous Knowledge Keepers, and residents simply curious about how to make a difference showed up ready to learn from one another and to strengthen the networks needed for lasting change.
That spirit of openness and invitation set the tone for a summit that felt participatory rather than performative. Speakers like notable climate author and organizer Seth Klein delivered an inspiring opening keynote speech that earned standing ovations, while local youth, Indigenous Elders, and community members shared stories and solutions that made the climate crisis feel tangible, local, and actionable.
The event featured an incredible lineup of speakers, including notable climate author and organizer Seth Klein who delivered the opening keynote speech.
Between presentations, breakout sessions created spaces for deeper engagement. Participants explored topics like relational power for community climate resilience, intersectional climate action, youth-led solutions, Indigenous-led initiatives, climate communications, and emotional resilience in the face of eco-anxiety. But interestingly, the sessions were just as much about helping people see the links between these issues as they were about any single topic.
As Hub Chair Kevin Lindsay explained, the goal was to spark clarity (and possibility). “We wanted to help people really have these light bulb moments where they begin to realize the connections between all of these different aspects,” he says. “The climate crisis and how we look at climate change is so complex and intersectional, that there are all of these pieces that not everybody realizes. [We hoped to have] those connections become more obvious to people and understandable where they go, ‘oh, aha, I'm getting it. I'm getting how this affects people in so many different ways. And therefore, there are all these different ways that I can take action as a result.’”
Just as importantly, the summit also reminded attendees that climate engagement can also be joyful. A high school teacher-slash-musician from Montreal surprised attendees with a performance blending ballad and rap that had the crowd clapping along. Meanwhile, Seniors for Climate and the Council of Canadians organized a Draw the Line banner: a 52-foot visual testament to collective commitment, carried through the crowd to celebrate community-driven advocacy.
Connection as a catalyst for change
The Climate Connections Summit offers a roadmap for how to strengthen local movements through relationships, not just resolutions. Its success didn’t hinge on a single speaker or slogan, but on creating the conditions for people to see themselves as part of something larger — namely, a living network of shared responsibility and collective care.
The Nanaimo Hub, in centering connection as both process and outcome, demonstrated that climate advocacy can be civic engagement at its best: participatory, intergenerational, and deeply rooted in place. Be it through Indigenous-led storytelling or workshops on mental health and youth leadership, every aspect of the summit underscored that resilient communities are built through conversation and collaboration, a lesson that resonates far beyond Vancouver Island.
All in all, Nanaimo’s experience offers practical insights for others: start from community strengths, invite a diversity of voices, and design spaces where learning and relationship-building are as important as the climate policies being discussed. Because when people feel connected (to each other and to the place they call home), it is inevitable that action naturally follows.
Find your local hub or start your own, and let's keep the momentum growing together!
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