Climate change festival: turning the debate on its head

The debate about global warming is usually framed in profoundly unhelpful ways. If you want to change behaviour, the issue needs to be defined in terms of opportunity and well-being, not doom and scolding.

Breaking the mould

The climate change festival encouraged Birmingham residents to think differently about a changing climate. City landmarks were recreated as jelly moulds for billboard ads.

© Andrew Penketh / Alexander Boxill

One of the most important things to emerge from the Hothouse in Bristol was the conviction that the time had come to show how responding to climate change can improve your town or city. The major regional ‘core’ cities agreed that CABE should find a way to inspire people with the idea of how good it would be to live in a well-designed, low carbon place. This would secure a public mandate for the bold political decisions required to make it a reality.

So during June 2008, a third of a million people in Birmingham enjoyed the UK’s first climate change festival. CABE and the city council hosted 181 activities over nine days, helping the public see a direct link between climate change and the design of the buildings and places around them.

So what are the ingredients of a climate change festival? First of all, it needs a dramatic focal point. We set a 29-metre-high electricity pylon right outside the town hall, sitting in a small field of corn. The pylon was a brutal object transformed into something beautiful: nickel plated, it sparkled in the sunshine, and changed colour through the night from green to gold. As a piece of surreal art, this pylon reflected some basic truths about the delusions which permeate our lives – as though we can consume without limits and outwit nature.

Next, we curated the city itself, commissioning a series of outsized picture frames (with a bench attached) to frame key views of the urban landscape. They were big and brightly coloured, inviting families to picnic on them and chew over how the city might change. One was titled ‘Hot, not bothered’ and framed the buildings supplied by a district heating system.

The festival launched with teenagers watching displays of parkour and ended with mass tai chi in a city square, and the programme in between included visits and talks led by architects and local developers.

It succeeded in providing a platform for political leadership: Birmingham City Council announced its intention to cut carbon emissions by 60 per cent in just 18 years, at that time twice as fast as the target set by national government.