Takeaways From The Guardian's Climate Assembly

London, UK - September 16, 2025 

Climate Action for Associations (CAFA) attended the Guardian's Climate Assembly at Friend's House in London. The panel was hosted by Guardian columnist George Monbiot featuring experts: Mikaela Loach, a climate justice activist and author, Emma Pinchbeck, CEO of the Climate Change Committee; and Zack Polanski, Leader of the Green Party. The discussion was opened by Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief of The Guardian, who set the tone by stressing that climate journalism must not only reveal the scale of crisis but also highlight solutions, agency, and collective hope.

Following Viner’s introduction, we have summarised the key takeaways from each of the panelists on the various questions raised by George Monbiot and the audience.

Katherine Viner reminded the audience of the risks faced by those reporting on the climate crisis, with 44 journalists having been killed in the past 15 years during their investigative research. Monbiot kicked off with the harsh reality of what lies ahead: COP30 is already predicted to be a failure due to their lack of alignment with the level of crisis being faced, with governments drifting further than ever from climate science even, as we edge towards an earth systems collapse. Business as usual from governments and political systems is simply incapable of meeting the scale of the crisis. We need to rethink almost everything.

When questioned about hope, Mikaela Loach emphasised that it is not a passive state, but disruptive. Feelings of despair should not paralyse us but instead be channelled into action, directed at the very causes of that despair. History shows us that polite requests have never been enough to drive systemic change. The UK, she argued, has a historic responsibility to move faster on decarbonisation and to repair harm caused by its industries, citing Shell’s devastation of the Niger Delta where communities live with oil in their water sources.

For Zack Polanski, real change and hope lies in communities, not in waiting for political elites. He stated that many people feel as though politics is something being done to them instead of with them, therefore emphasising the need for empowerment, by giving people the tools, building connections, co-designing and co-producing solutions with those most affected from the outset. Stories are critical, he said, because people need to feel like protagonists in this struggle, not spectators. By tapping into the public's need for agency and empowerment is where hope and action can converge.

Emma Pinchbeck brought the policy and economic perspective, drawing on her leadership at the Climate Change Committee. She highlighted the UK’s Climate Change Act and carbon budgets as evidence of what is possible, with territorial emissions have already fallen by 50% since the 1990s, largely due to the phasing out of coal. Technology has accelerated this progress, with battery costs dropping by 80% and one in five cars sold in the UK now being electric. The cost of decarbonisation has halved with the use of the UK's carbon budget model, with this model being adopted internationally. Emma referenced Akshat Rathi who opens his book Climate Capitalism with the following quote, "It's now cheaper to save the world than destroy it". These successes should be celebrated but she was clear that success depends on fairness and the vital need for sustainable solutions to be accessible to everyone. Social research carried out by the Climate Change Committee has shown that people want clarity about which choices are better, reassurance that poorer households will not be left behind, and a narrative that emphasises climate impact over abstract goals like “net zero,” which risk losing the ability to convey the emotional connection to nature and the environment that the public needs.

Communication remains an overarching challenge. With 60% of the public now getting their climate information online, misinformation threatens to undermine progress. When Mikaela touched on climate denialism, she warned that it is less about genuine belief and more about distraction, and has come to be used as a tactic to prevent meaningful progress. This demonstrates how the role of journalism becomes more important than ever, vital even: not only to report facts, but to connect them to agency, to show that despair can be turned into disruption, and to hold open a space for hope.