Stronger together: women’s voices creating pathways for change

30 July 2026

The first ever Adelaide Climate Action Week (ACAW) was held in July 2026 and Women's Climate Congress (WCC) hosted an event to bring together Adelaide-based members and contacts and other interested women.

At the event, participants got to meet like-minded women and have the WCC experience in a sharing circle to explore pathways for change.

We shared the founding story of the WCC – applying the same feminist thinking that motivated the women’s peace movement in WW1 to propose a transformative new world order to action on climate change. And we shared the key initiatives the WCC is currently working on – from policy research and building relationships with women in parliament to setting up rural and regional climate hubs, building relationships with First Nations women and hosting a hub for women’s organisations to engage and amplify their voices on climate action. It’s a busy volunteer organisation.

We also raised the concept of gender inequality in how climate change impacts more significantly on women. We also recognised that there is a large number of energy and environmental policies in the climate change space. And that these too can add to inequality. A key and immediate action of the WCC Charter is to create a unified national plan/roadmap for the energy transition.

This event was created and hosted by SA members, Deborah Crossing and Toni Hassan. Deborah presents the Energy Policy Lab at our member forums and Toni is a visual artist integrating the arts at Congress and in policy, integrating gender, disaster resilience and climate change.

WCC Founder, Janet Salisbury, also travelled to Adelaide to participate in the festival and attend this event. Steering Circle member Liz Courtney was a member of the organising committee for the week and was running the media and comms activities.

Read up more about Adelaide Climate Action Week.

Watch a video from the event.