Attending the opening of the inaugural Adelaide Climate Action Week reinforced that responding to climate change cannot belong to one government, sector, profession or community as it requires many people playing different but connected roles.
Government policy and international agreements matter so do science, investment, technology, infrastructure, education, workforce capability, industry transformation, First Nations knowledge, cultural leadership and community action.
Local government is one part of this much larger picture but it is an important part because councils work where policies, systems and climate impacts become real for people.
Speaking as Mayor of the City of Onkaparinga and representing the Local Government Association of South Australia, Mayor Moira Were offered a particularly powerful way of thinking about everyone’s place in that response, “We’re all residents.”
Throughout our lives, we might also be workers, employers, students, patients, researchers, volunteers, business owners, elected representatives or members of community organisations but wherever we live we are all residents.
That shared connection to place carries both rights and responsibilities. It gives everyone a reason to participate in decisions about the communities, environments and futures being created around us.
A Week for Ideas, Action and Connection
Running from 27 July to 2 August 2026, Adelaide Climate Action Week is South Australia’s first community-led climate action festival. It brings together events, experiences and conversations across Adelaide and beyond, creating opportunities for people to exchange ideas, learn from different perspectives and explore practical action.
The Local Government Association of South Australia is a founding partner, reflecting the part councils already play in adaptation, mitigation, community resilience and environmental management.
Yet one of the strengths of the week is that it does not present climate action as the responsibility of local government or government generally alone. The program creates space for people from across business, industry, research, education, government, the arts, community organisations and civil society.
That diversity matters because climate change is not one isolated problem with a single technical answer. It touches energy, water, food, transport, housing, land use, workforce capability, business models, emergency management, health, biodiversity, coastlines and community wellbeing as no single organisation holds all the knowledge needed to respond.
Where Climate Policy Meets Daily Life
Mayor Were described councils as trusted partners working with communities “day in and day out”.
Local government is often where broad climate commitments meet practical questions.
- How should communities prepare for longer and more intense heatwaves?
- How do towns and suburbs recover from storms or flooding?
- How should planning systems respond to changing environmental conditions?
- How can energy, water and other services be delivered differently?
- How do communities protect coastlines while supporting residents, businesses, tourism and biodiversity?
For the City of Onkaparinga, that includes responsibility for approximately 31 kilometres of coastline. Moira reflected on how councils are having to change their own behaviours, including the way they collect data, establish partnerships, manage resources and collaborate across boundaries.
“We’re working together with industry, with other levels of government, and also with the innovators, the creators, and people with imagination.” That reference to imagination stayed with me.
Climate action needs technical knowledge, credible evidence and sound policy. It also needs people prepared to imagine alternatives, challenge old assumptions and develop practical new approaches. From a workforce and economic development perspective, that raises important questions about the skills, occupations, enterprises and partnerships required for the transition ahead.
From Adelaide to the Pacific
The conversations taking place during Adelaide Climate Action Week are also connected to a much wider international context.
COP31, the 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference, will be held in Antalya, Türkiye, from 9 to 20 November 2026.
Under the partnership established for COP31, Türkiye will host the conference and hold the COP Presidency, while Australia will serve as President of Negotiations, working with the international community and Pacific nations to shape the negotiation process and advance Pacific priorities.
Ahead of COP31, Fiji will host the official Pre-COP meetings from 5 to 8 October 2026, including a leaders’ event in Tuvalu. The events are intended to place global decision-makers closer to communities experiencing some of the most immediate consequences of climate change while highlighting Pacific leadership and Pacific-led solutions. This arrangement is significant, but it should not be romanticised.
Pacific nations have contributed comparatively little to global emissions, yet they face profound risks to land, water, infrastructure, livelihoods, culture and sovereignty. Hosting international leaders in Fiji and Tuvalu creates an opportunity for those realities to be seen directly, but visibility must be accompanied by meaningful outcomes, access to climate finance and sustained international action.
The Pacific should not simply provide the setting or emotional context for climate negotiations. Pacific governments, communities and leaders must be recognised as partners with expertise, agency and solutions.
Climate Action Is Also Cultural
One of Moira’s strongest points was that climate action is not separate from culture.
“It’s a cultural response, not just an environmental response.”
The climate transition is often discussed through targets, technologies, emissions calculations and infrastructure projects. All are necessary, but change also depends on what communities value, what they consider fair, which stories they tell and whether people can see themselves in the future being proposed.
Culture shapes whether change is embraced, resisted or experienced as something being imposed. It also influences whose knowledge is recognised, who is invited into the room and whose interests are prioritised.
The COP31 partnership between Türkiye, Australia and the Pacific brings together very different cultures, political contexts, economies and experiences of climate change. Making that partnership work will involve more than formal diplomatic processes. It will require listening, respect, negotiation and recognition that climate impacts and capabilities are not distributed equally.
Everyone Has Something to Bring
The success of global climate action will depend on many things such as diplomatic leadership, credible targets, finance, technology, political will, accountability and cooperation between nations.
Local government is one contributor within that complex system and residents are another. So are businesses, investors, researchers, educators, entrepreneurs, artists, engineers, planners, community leaders, young people and people whose experience is too often absent from formal decision-making.
Mayor Were called for innovators, creators and people with imagination to be included because the future cannot be built only by those already occupying established positions. That is highly relevant to Adelaide Climate Action Week.
The value of the week will not only be found in the formal presentations. It will also come from the connections made between people who might not otherwise meet, the questions that challenge conventional thinking and the practical ideas that continue after the events conclude.
Taking a Seat at the Table
Moira ended with a familiar but effective reminder:
“If you’re not at the table, you probably are on the menu.”
Participation alone will not resolve every issue. Not every table is genuinely inclusive, and being present does not guarantee equal influence but withdrawing entirely leaves decisions to others.
As Adelaide Climate Action Week unfolds, the invitation is not for everyone to become a climate scientist or policy expert, it is an invitation to bring what each person knows. That might be knowledge of a community, workplace, industry, business, coastline, farming system, technology, culture, occupation or lived experience.
From Adelaide and Onkaparinga to Fiji, Tuvalu and Türkiye, climate action operates across very different scales, the connecting idea is place as everyone lives somewhere, everyone is a resident. And every resident has something to contribute to the future of the place they call home.