Peace Building as Climate Crisis Prevention and Preparation

Upskilling conversations for a chaotic climate -- a London Climate Action Week event jointly organised by the Climate Majority Project, the Centre for Creative Conversations, and the Inner Climate Response Alliance.

As environmental breakdown intensifies, it increasingly accelerates instability worldwide. At the same time, global conflict delays climate action and remains a significant source of emissions and habitat destruction. These two crises feed each other, yet the people working on them rarely work together.

The climate crisis is not only an environmental emergency — it is also a relationship and communication emergency.

People are not starting from the same place. Some deny the crisis. Some accept it but underestimate the timescale. Others do not yet grasp the scale of disruption climate impacts will generate here in the UK. And views are becoming increasingly polarised — even among those who agree there is a crisis but disagree on how to respond. Polarisation, in this context, is not just uncomfortable. It is dangerous: it blocks the collective action we urgently need.

Research shows that a community's social cohesion and ability to communicate are key predictors of its resilience in the face of stressful events — flooding, food insecurity, conflict. Bridgebuilding is both prevention and preparation: it creates the social fabric needed to coordinate under pressure, and it increases people's capacity to accept climate reality and act on it.

In this interactive two-hour session, participants will experience a sequence of short exercises that build the conversational skills needed to bring down the heat in the room, increase understanding, and connect in a way that enables collective action at many scales — families, communities, and institutions.

Snacks and beverages included.

Drawing on CMP's Mobilising Silent Majorities research, we will also explore why polarised environments are currently the biggest blocker to building a shared infrastructure of resilience.

What you will take away

• Community builders: Simple, effective tools for bridgebuilding in your networks

• Business leaders: Strategies for navigating polarised environments and building internal and external consensus

• Insurers and risk managers: The link between social bridgebuilding and reduced liability in disaster-prone areas

• Philanthropists: unexpected leverage points at the intersection between climate resilience and peace-building