Image: Plant a Promise - Artwork in 4 parts (dance, installation, planting, yarning) by Henrietta Baird

Creative Climate Action Alliance (working title) – July 2024

2pg outline for Creative Australia Climate Action Delivery Service tender process

Building on the work of Creative Recovery Network and Cultural Gardeners–Australian Alliance for Climate Justice, we will coordinate and facilitate the mobilisation of arts and culture across Australia to imagine and create a just and regenerative world, rehearsing new futures informed by systems change that respond to accelerating disaster and escalate creative climate action.

Australia leads the world in many devastating impacts of the global Climate and Ecological Emergency. Given the urgency of this crisis for society and our creative sector, and the scale of action required worldwide, we believe that accelerating action hinges on a uniquely Australian, decentralised yet unified, cooperative effort.

We prioritise the principle of First Peoples first, recognising the essential role that Elders, community and cultural leaders play in holding Care for Country protocols and practices essential for climate adaptation. Our approach seeks to integrate place-based creative climate action with First Nations leadership and social justice principles of care, underscoring the importance of a community-wide agenda.

Working at the intersection of climate action, creative practice and social justice, we will prioritise artists and others currently disadvantaged in present systems. We will cultivate an alliance across the creative sector, identify and amplify existing work, pool resources and expertise, and pinpoint learning needs to drive collective impact and contribute to systemic change. We will offer tools and tactics, build capacity and harness the power of creative skills to co-create climate centred strategies that make a real difference. We will identify practices that need to be dismantled as we strengthen muscles of imagination to envision a more liveable future, beyond the instrumental needs of now. Abundant creativity will regenerate society, through the tangible and intangible work required to find new connections and solutions. How is as important as what we dream and do together.

Through the breadth of our cross-sector relationships, we will determine shared priorities for action, investment and creative practice led responses. Our work will take culture and the arts into the climate space, embedding them into climate discussion, climate change actions, public policy and bring together industry leaders around creative practice processes and pathways for pragmatic action. We will walk the talk of Creative Climate Action.

The Challenge

• Climate crisis is a cultural crisis, an existential crisis and a social justice crisis, fuelled by ongoing colonisation
• Societal inaction, undermining scientific evidence predicting disaster, has entrenched resistance to change
• An already overstretched and under-resourced arts and cultural sector is struggling to maintain current work
• Embracing a Systems approach – to identify and tackle ‘wicked problems’ within hierarchical and centralised cultural structures to enable effective place-based creative climate action. We can only change this together!
• Moving from siloed competitive frameworks/ mindsets towards collaborative processes and shared agendas
• Building community wide imagination/ ambition for change that respects the severity of converging crises
• Aligning to ambitious carbon reduction targets and transitioning conversation into real, urgent action

Proposed Framework

The Three-Category Approach was developed by Torres Strait Islander researcher, scientist and consultant Stan Lui, together with members of the Indigenous Advisory Committee of the Commonwealth Department of Environment and Energy. This methodology encourages reciprocal relationships and two-way learning.

1. Communicate – Strengthening knowledge and share our developments

• Support and promote creative climate action work and knowledge currently active across the creative sector; strengthening, utilising and deepening its activation and impact
• Promote new stories of climate action and cultural enterprise infused with Care for Country and social justice
• Build understanding of climate context and greenwashing, while raising the profile of creative sector climate action work through forums, gatherings and political pathways

In Practice:

• Creative Climate Action Alliance (name tbc) – to share knowledge and build methodologies for co-creation through regular meetings, working groups and bespoke projects, with ethics of care in this demanding work
• Evolve existing National Taskforce of government, climate and disaster sector leaders to identify pathways for the arts and cultural sector participation at critical tables for climate action, research and policy change.
• Advocate for the transformative role of culture in climate action through new and existing campaigns E.G. Coalition for Climate Ambition – a collective of science, business, community, research leaders led by The Australia Institute calling on the Australian government to restrict the worst impacts of climate change. Culture2030 goal for United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s), Group of Friends for Culture-based Climate Action (COP meetings), Humanity Summit…

2. Collaborate – building stronger partnerships

• Strengthen existing networks for knowledge-sharing, to identify best practice methods and generate tools for accelerating climate knowledge and action into the creative sector
• Establish collective opportunities for transfer of skills, actively support the leadership of independent players and knowledge holders, climate resource developers and community facilitators

In Practice:

• Consultancy framework for professional development, capacity building, climate education and peer to peer communities of practice that utilises expertise in the alliance
• Regular meetings to exchange and share the web of engagement, knowledge and relational opportunities across the sector E.G. Creative Recovery Community of Practice, Cultural Gardeners, Bilya relational map
• Brainstorm solutions with specific projects to decarbonise and decolonise systems, implement impact research methodologies, highlight the value of creative climate action in and beyond the creative sector

3. Co-design – respecting priorities and values, meaningful participation and leadership

• Develop innovative tools, drawn from multiple knowledges, to de-carbonise and manage cultural resource use that is integrated with disaster preparedness planning and community capacity building

• Collectively reimagine and rehearse new futures exploring opportunities for artists and the creative sector in a changing world
• Partnership Projects - Practical experiments, rehearsing futures, pilots and proof of concepts, e.g.

In practice:

Partnership Projects - Practical experiments, rehearsing futures, pilots and proof of concepts, e.g.

• Creative Climate Transition Scheme- decarbonising and transitioning the arts sector (phased)

• Green Cultural Centres - transform infrastructure to renewables, regenerating purpose and impact
• Service for Country reimagined national service with Care, Country, Culture & Civil Society framing
• Wicked Problems Creative Lab using collective impact methodology to brainstorm & pilot solutions

SKETCH TIMELINE

Year 1 – 2025

ACTIVATE the alliance, define shared values, impact, intent and commitment, meet regularly to plan together

Year 2 – 2026

IMPLEMENT through clearly defined place-based projects, Play bigger through participation in COP 31

Year 3 – 2027

REALIGN to dynamic disaster and climate action context, measure impact and ongoing needs

Year 4 – 2028

REGENERATE towards ambitious 2030 and 2040 net zero agendas as Australia enters the Cultural Olympiad for 2032

Governance arrangement for this process

Auspicing Body

Creative Recovery Network has been building climate responsive partnerships and activation across the disaster management sector for the past 12 years. This work is world leading.

CRN is the lead applicant and will carry the financial and legal responsibility for the core team and Alliance, oversee human resources, bylaws and policies. The Creative Recovery Network takes its ethics and operational direction for this project in partnership with the project team, in adherence with the core values and foundational principles of the Creative Recovery Network in alignment with the Creative Climate Action Alliance. It is understood that as the project develops this role may change as the work develops.

The Creative Climate Action team

The team will initially work within a 3-way leadership model with specific individual responsibilities and shared areas of work to model and strengthen collaboration. The team will take a systems approach to advance the service delivery mission, balancing creative roles with management, responsibility for project oversight, partner communication, sourcing funds and reporting, guided by an ethics of care. Each member will be supported for a three-day week, one day for collective visioning, planning and peer support.

Eva Grace (WA) - Eva Grace Mullaley is a Widi woman from the Yamatji Nation, in the Midwest of WA, has been working in the Arts for nearly 20 years. She was the executive/development producer for the Blackfulla Performing Arts Alliance (a peak body on the verge of incorporation) and former Artistic Director of Yirra Yarkin Theatre Company. Eva is an active member of Yirra Yaakin, the Ilbijerri Theatre Company, Moogahlin Performing Arts and peak Indigenous dance organisation, Blakdance; who are all part of a national cohort representing First Nations Performing Arts across the nation. She understands change is built through relationships and that absorbing Indigenous stories of history and creation teach us to move forward into the future together.

Pippa Bailey (NSW) - Pippa Bailey is an independent live performance and events producer/director and consultant, based on Wangal Land (Sydney). She held various leading roles while living in the UK, and since 2013 Pippa has worked as Senior Producer with Performing Lines, Sydney Festival and in the First Nations team at Carriageworks. As Director for ChangeFest 2019-21, the National celebration of place-based social change, co-designed events with Elders and communities, to imagine systems change and sustainable futures. Pippa works in support of First Nations artists; Henrietta Baird and Jacob Boehme. She participated in the Creative Climate Leaders Course led by Creative Australia and Julie's Bicycle in 2023, co-convenes the Cultural Gardeners – Australian Alliance for Climate Justice, is a coordinator for Culture Declares Emergency UK, and a board Director of Theatre Network NSW and IETM – International Performing Arts Network. Through IETM Pippa has played a leading role in their New International in the Performing Arts (NIPA) 2022-2024 strategy and Green Transition agenda including a resource use reduction scheme with 16 European cultural networks.

Scotia Monkivitch (QLD) – Scotia is based on the lands of the Jagera/Turrbal peoples, Meanjin, and is the founder and manager of the Creative Recovery Network, working from the understanding of the importance of place-based engagement and activation for deep climate action and the value of local capacity building needed for deep long-term systems change to support communities into a sustainable and resilient future for all. She has a background in multi-disciplinary performance and community arts and cultural development, with national and international experience across disability, arts and health, regional and remote communities, professional supervision, research, and training. She has an education background, has worked as teacher and university lecturer in Australia and internationally, and has developed a range of education programs and resources.