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8 minute read

written by

Marina Robb

London Climate Action Week: from Metropolis in Meltdown to Urban Utopia

Around the capital, the finishing touches are being made to London climate Action Week; an annual 7-day calendar of events at the end of June to promote and celebrate what is being done to mitigate the climate emergency. Healthcare’s input is key here, so, in the first in a series of articles focusing on LCAW, we asked Greener Practice member and outdoor practitioner Marina Robb about local progress going on behind the concrete façade. Here’s what she told us…

One of the most powerful things about practising outdoors in a city is that it interrupts the idea that nature is somewhere else.

In London, we might not always have access to ancient woodland or wild moorland, but we do have parks, street trees, roof gardens, cemeteries, rivers, canals, moss in the cracks, nettles behind railings, buddleia on railway lines, foxes at night, fungi in autumn, blackberries on edges and birds moving through the city. Often there is much more wildlife in urban places than people expect.

For me, climate education has to begin with relationship. The climate crisis is not only a carbon crisis; it is also a relationship crisis. We have been trained to think of ourselves as separate individuals, living in a human-built world, when in reality we are completely dependent on plants, soil, water, fungi, insects, weather systems and the wider living world.

Outdoor learning helps people feel that directly. When you touch a nettle, make cordage, notice the shade of a tree, taste a blackberry away from the road, watch water move through a park, or feel the difference between concrete heat and woodland cool, climate change stops being only an abstract global issue. It becomes local, bodily and relational.

That is central to my outdoor learning Practitioner Guide for Climate Education. We need climate education that is not just about facts and fear, but about helping children and adults understand systems, feel connected, build practical skills, and recognise themselves as part of the living world.

Nadia Shaikh spoke beautifully in our podcast conversation about wanting us to defend nature as fiercely as we defend the NHS — as something collectively ours, something we all depend on, something that should not only be available to the privileged few. That feels very relevant in London. In a city, outdoor learning can help people see green space not as a luxury, but as essential infrastructure for health, justice, learning, biodiversity and climate resilience.

Many Londoners feel overwhelmed by climate headlines. How can outdoor practice transform this anxiety into constructive action?

I don’t think we should sugar-coat the climate and ecological crisis. There is real loss. There is injustice. There is uncertainty. It makes sense that people feel anxious, sad, angry or overwhelmed.

But outdoor practice gives us somewhere to put those feelings.

When we are outdoors together, especially in a well-held group, people often feel safer. The nervous system can settle. There is more space to breathe, move, speak, be quiet, notice, listen and relate on our own terms. The more-than-human world can hold something that a classroom or meeting room often cannot.

In my work, I try not to rush people out of anxiety too quickly. Sometimes eco-anxiety is what we hit before reaching the deeper grief, anger or love underneath. It is important to let injustice move us, and then ask: what do I have to offer? That is such an important question.

Outdoor climate education can help people move through a cycle:

First, we notice.
Then, we feel.
Then, we understand.
Then, we act.

The action might be very local. It might be planting for pollinators, caring for a school grounds, mapping shade, growing food, learning local plants, creating a wildlife corridor, campaigning for access to green space, changing food habits, talking with neighbours, or supporting policies that protect land and water.

The point is not to pretend we have all the answers. We do not know the future. But we can learn not to dissociate. We can learn to stay present, build community, share the emotional burden, and take grounded action where we are.

That is why outdoor learning is so important for climate education. It gives people direct experience of interdependence. It builds attention, care and agency. It helps us remember that climate action is not only about personal guilt; it is about collective responsibility, systems change and local belonging.

What can a busy Londoner do to align their lifestyle with the goals of London Climate Action Week?

1 – talk about it.

Climate silence is powerful. Many people are worried, but they do not know how to speak about it without sounding too negative, too political, too emotional or too overwhelming. So one simple action is to break the silence gently. Talk to a friend, a colleague, a neighbour, a child. Share what matters to you. Ask what they are noticing. Begin with care, not blame.

2 – build one small relationship with food or plants.

Grow one thing on a windowsill. Herbs, salad leaves, peas, tomatoes, pollinator plants — anything. Or cook a meal with friends using local, seasonal produce. Or learn one wild plant safely and well. The point is not self-sufficiency; it is relationship. When we grow, gather, cook and share food, we begin to understand dependence, seasonality, soil, labour, weather and care.

3 – look at where your money goes.

Changing bank, pension or energy provider can feel less immediate than planting something, but it can be a very practical climate action. Our money is not neutral. It supports certain futures. For a busy Londoner, switching financial systems away from fossil fuels and extractive industries can be one of the more significant actions available.

4 – use and defend your local green spaces.

Visit your parks. Notice the trees. Learn the names of common plants. Join a local friends-of group. Support access to nature for everyone. Land justice and Right to Roam reminds us that access is not a small issue. Who gets to enjoy, learn from, care for and belong to land is a climate justice issue too.

What’s going on locally that London residents can get excited about?

There is a growing recognition that cities are going to be crucial places for climate action, climate resilience and ecological imagination.

In London, I would love people to get excited about the ordinary places: school grounds, parks, verges, estates, cemeteries, canals, rooftops, community gardens, urban farms and street trees. These are not secondary to climate work. They are where people can begin.

In my own work, I am particularly interested in developing outdoor learning approaches that help teachers, youth workers, families and practitioners bring climate education alive through direct experience. That means learning through local plants, habitats, weather, food, water, soil, biodiversity, seasonal change, practical skills, emotional resilience and community action.

My Practitioner Guide for Climate Education is part of that wider aim: to support practitioners to move climate education out of fear and abstraction, and into relationship, place, creativity and grounded action.

I also think there is something exciting happening culturally. More people are asking: who owns land? Who gets access to nature? Why are some communities greener and cooler than others? How do we make cities liveable in a heating world? How do we build a sense of the commons again?

Those questions are uncomfortable, but they are also energising. They open the possibility of a different kind of urban future — one where the city is not seen as separate from nature, but as a living system.

The 3rd goal is about resilient climate transitions in the whole of the UK, not just London, so could this be translated into other large urban areas?

Yes, I think the principles are absolutely transferable.

Every city has its own ecology, history, inequalities, communities and possibilities. London is unique, but the wider questions apply everywhere: who has access to green space? Where are the heat islands? Where are the trees? Where are the rivers? Which communities are most affected by pollution, poor housing, flooding or lack of shade? Where can children safely learn outdoors? Where can people grow food, gather, rest and restore?

Outdoor climate education does not have to depend on spectacular landscapes. In fact, urban outdoor learning may be one of the most important forms of climate education because it reaches people where they live.

In Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Glasgow, Cardiff or any other city, we can ask:

What is the nearest patch of living world?
What can we learn from it?
Who has access to it?
Who does not?
What does this place tell us about climate, class, health and justice?
What could we restore, grow, protect or reimagine together?

Climate education cannot only be about individual behaviour change. It also has to ask bigger questions about land, power, access, food systems and public good.
It needs science, but it also needs relationship…It needs action, but it also needs grief, imagination and belonging.

We’re grateful to Marina for sharing her expertise and advice. Her wider work is about helping educators, practitioners and communities take learning outdoors in ways that are practical, inclusive, trauma-informed, ecological and emotionally honest.

For more information, see:

Photos: top = Circle of Life Rediscovery CIC event at Bethnal Green, London.
Bottom = Marina Robb