Cape Town
Climate Week
8—13 September 2025
A week of city-wide, grassroots climate action
WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT?
Cape Town Climate Week returns for its fourth year – a city-wide celebration of grassroots solutions to our most urgent crises: climate change, spatial injustice, food and water insecurity, a broken energy system, and gender injustice.
This isn’t another round of talks in boardrooms. Over six days and eight events, activists, community leaders, students, and citizens will get on bikes, attend teach-ins, plant gardens, and walk the streets – exploring how climate change is deeply connected to social justice in South Africa.
Tapping into South Africa’s history of change catalysed by grassroots action, participants will journey through different areas of the city and witness how climate change is a threat amplifier. When the floods come, it’s those worst affected by Apartheid spatial planning that lose their homes. When the droughts come, our food and water are at risk.
Citizens, and the youth, can’t wait for governments to waste time at conferences and talk shops – we can and should be bringing adaptation and resilience to our own communities, now.
WHAT IS THE AIM?
Sometimes, these problems feel too big to tackle. But, by learning about alternative forms of transport, housing, urban planning, energy systems, food growing, water resilience and gender-inclusive policy, overwhelm will be turned into collective grassroots action.
The aim is to create a sense of curious, active citizenry and prove that there are many ways to care for our planet, communities, and generations to come. Ultimately, taking climate action has positive social impacts.
2025 THEMES
ENERGY JUSTICE | WATER JUSTICE | FOOD JUSTICE | SPATIAL JUSTICE | GENDER JUSTICE | INTERGENERATIONAL SOLIDARITY
By exploring the 6 thematic areas, Cape Town Climate Week 2025 aimed to promote dialogue, collaboration and, fun, and dynamic action towards building a sustainable and just future in South Africa. This will be done through group cycles, teach-ins, tours, screenings, and gatherings across the city.
Click on the buttons below to learn more about each of our themes:
2025 PROGRAMME
MONDAY, 8 SEPTEMBER
CYCLE FOR SYSTEM CHANGE
To kick off Cape Town Climate Week 2025, join us for a group awareness-raising cycle, from Bertha House to Lange Bicycle Hub, followed by a discussion on how we navigate through a segregated city and how accessible public transport can transform our city.
Time: 08:30–10:30 (We will leave promptly at 08:30, so please arrive at 08:15 so we can allocate you a bike)
Start point: Bertha House, Mowbray
Note: For this event, we can only accommodate people who already know how to cycle. Bikes will be provided by Langa Bicycle Hub and a taxi will transport participants back to Bertha House after the event.
UNDOING SPATIAL APARTHEID: LESSONS FROM LANGALIBALELE
This interactive session will explore the intersection between climate change and spatial injustice in Cape Town, through the lens of Ndifuna Ukwazi’s Langalibalele pilot project in Langa. The project is a prototype of climate-resilient emergency housing using Alternative Building Technologies (ABTs) like sandbag construction. This session will ground the broader conversation on climate inequality in a real-world site of innovation and resistance.
Time: 11:00–14:00
Location: Langalibalele Pilot Site, Langa
BORDERS AND BELONGING: ‘BOUBE OF THE FULANI’ SCREENING + DISCUSSION
We can’t address spatial justice in the age of climate change without discussing climate migration. Join us for a screening of the short documentary, set in Benin, ‘Boube of the Fulani’ and a facilitated discussion about how rethinking borders and belonging must be part of our future imaginings.
About the film: “Boubé and his Fulani tribe prepare for the seasonal migration, an adventure that has sparked conflict over the recent years as water and grazing shrinks due to climate change. He has a plan to approach the tensions differently this time, in the hopes of finding a new way to co-exist.”
Time: 18:00–20:00
Location: Bertha House Cinema, Mowbray
TUESDAY, 9 SEPTEMBER
SOWING SEEDS FOR SYSTEM CHANGE CITY TOUR
Join us for a guided food justice tour and planting experience across Cape Town, exploring how food connects us, nourishes us, and serves as a tool for freedom and reclamation. Together, we’ll visit key community garden locations in Elsies River, Delft and Mitchells Plain, listen to stories of food growers, share a farm-to-table lunch and see firsthand how people are taking food sovereignty into their own hands.
Time: 09:30-15:00 (We will leave promptly at 09:45, so please arrive at 09:15)
Meeting Point: Bertha House, Mowbray
Note: We will provide transport between all locations and back to Bertha House afterwards.
WEDNESDAY, 10 SEPTEMBER
CLIMATE CAFE: ENERGY JUSTICE
The fossil fuel industry continues to shape energy policies, delay climate action, and obscure its historical role in driving the climate crisis—often at the expense of marginalised communities. Join us for a Climate Cafe and exhibition that will combine education, interactivity, and collective action to expose the industry’s tactics, celebrate progress in holding it accountable, and empower attendees to advocate for energy justice.
Time: 13:00-16:00
Location: The Commons, Muizenberg
THURSDAY, 11 SEPTEMBER
RIPPLES OF CHANGE: SCREENING + WORLD WATER GAME
Join us to explore what water justice means and how it’s connected to the climate crisis. The event will begin with a screening of ‘Capturing Water’, a documentary that explores the lived realities of water injustice in Cape Town and South Africa. Then, we’ll play The World Water Game, an interactive and experiential learning activity designed to provoke critical reflection and dialogue. Participants will engage with real-world scenarios through role-play, decision-making, and collaborative problem-solving.
Time: 10:30-14:00
Location: Isivivana Centre, Khayelitsha
FRIDAY, 12 SEPTEMBER
GENDER AND PLANETARY HEALTH TEACH-IN
The challenges to human health and wellbeing that the climate crisis presents are compounded by interlinking systems of patriarchy and queerphobia – the climate crisis will have even worse consequences to the health and wellbeing of women and other marginalised genders. Join us for a teach-in that will bring together the issues of the climate crisis, maintaining pillars of health (shelter, food, medicine) and patriarchy. Using the insights from the teach-in, we’ll formulate a gender justice x climate justice statement/pledge for partners and individuals to sign.
Time: 12:00-15:00
Location: Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, CBD
SATURDAY, 13 SEPTEMBER
TEA BETWEEN GENERATIONS: BUILDING MOVEMENTS WITH CARE AND COURAGE
Since storytelling is at the heart of how we build solidarity, the closing of Cape Town Climate Week 2025 will be a time to gather and share stories for collective liberation. Join us for ‘Tea Between Generations: Building Movements with Courage and Care’ —a storytelling gathering that brings together youth and elders that have been involved in struggle movements before us. As we listen and engage with the stories of older comrades, this event seeks to create an intergenerational space for us to reflect on how we can cultivate everyday strategies and ideas for resistance against all systems of oppression.
Time: 11:00-14:00
Location: Community House, Salt River
