Climate Wise Women - Fiji, Maldives, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Uganda, United States of America

Climate Wise Women puts a human face on the impacts of climate change. Six women from six countries around the world are sharing their stories of their resilience to these impacts. They model the paths of leadership that they have walked for others to follow; they inspire their own communities as well as the many audiences they've connected with via their public speaking.

Fast facts:

A Climate Wise Woman, Ursula of Papua New Guinea, is in the process of relocating the Carteret Islanders to the autonomous region of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea. Ursula is working with a collaborative of 640 farmers, mostly women, to restore a healthy cocoa crop to the region, using sustainable agricultural techniques, so that there are sufficient economic resources to support the community;
Another Climate Wise Woman, Constance of Uganda, has taken up the idea of new, climate change resilient crops with her fellow women farmers in the United Osukuru Women's Network, that will not only ensure food security for the families but will also provide the women with new sources of income.

The problem

Women and children of the developing world are disproportionately and severely impacted by climate change.

The solution

This activity promotes women’s leadership through speaking tours and events, public and private, where grassroots women leaders present their challenges and accomplishments in their own words. The speaking engagements gather grassroots women and well-known women leaders together to illustrate the commonality of women's leadership across continents and across layers of privilege and poverty. Over the years Climate Wise Women has become a go-to resource for media, foundations and organizations looking for authentic grassroots women's leadership for events, interviews and conferences, to shine a spotlight on climate change impacts on women and to illustrate what women's leadership has accomplished to promote community climate resilience.

Helping the planet

At speaking events in North America and Northern Europe, Climate Wise Women wants their audiences to question more deeply what they can do to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. The Climate Wise Women explain that the emissions resulting from the audience's' way of life is harming their communities and they entreat them to work on carbon neutrality, through personal and political action.

Helping people

Beneficiaries of this activity include the women and girls who have met the Climate Wise Women as they have traveled the world and were inspired by their stories to their take up their own leadership and action.

Scaling up

This activity can be scaled up through mainstream amplification of the narratives of the Climate Wise Women through traditional and digital media, large and small-scale events, political forums and high-level global talks. Climate Wise Women hopes to expand their network of partnerships with groups and individuals who also have the power to amplify the stories of this activity. In 2030, this activity hopes they will no longer be necessary, that grassroots women’s leadership will finally be recognized as an essential ingredient in building true global resilience, and that grassroots women will have established their place at the decision-makers tables.