Upcoming Events
In 2025, COE will offer a series of interlinked programs designed to build emotional resilience and leadership capacity among young climate activists worldwide.
COE Youth-Led Resilience Activation at
NYC Climate Week 2025
Date: Monday, September 22, 2025
Location: New York City, USA
Hosted by: Six Seconds within NYC Climate Week 2025
What if emotional intelligence was the climate solution we’ve been missing?
Climate of Emotions (COE) is where youth voice, emotional intelligence, and climate action come together to build resilience from the inside out. This immersive event helps transform climate burnout into connection, purpose, and action.
Join us September 22 during NYC Climate Week 2025 for a high-energy, hands-on experience that’s intergenerational, global, and led by youth changemakers. Check out this 1-minute video for a quick glimpse of what COE feels like. COE blends music, storytelling, emotional intelligence, and community building for a revitalizing session to build resilience.
Why It Matters
Eco-anxiety. Isolation. Burnout.
Youth on the frontlines of climate justice are carrying an emotional load — and we can’t build a livable future if we’re empty inside. Emotional resilience isn’t a “nice to have.” It’s a survival skill. And we’re done pretending we don’t need it.
In a global pilot last year, participants showed measurable reductions of “climate distress” and gains in “climate enthusiasm.” Science says COE works and it’s time to go bigger.
The September 2025 COE event will include…
- Emotional Intelligence Training
The Six Seconds team will guide participants through science-based EQ skills that help leaders respond (not react), to stay grounded, and lead with heart. What could you do with more purpose, self-awareness and empathy? - Story Exchange Circles (with Narrative 4)
This isn’t just storytelling. It’s radical empathy. In small groups, we’ll share personal stories to find allies, hold space for emotions, and spark deeper understanding. When we transform personal and collective narratives we build a foundation of empathy for inner sustainability. - Creative Expression Lab
Make some noise. Fill yourself with joy. Stomp, clap, clap as you co-create with guest artist Tammi Sakurai in an interactive body percussion session. Whether you’re an artist or not, this is your space to feel, imagine, and express climate emotions in bold new ways. - Resilience Building
Glow up your resilience. Emotions are your renewable resource, your inner fire. In this activation, you’ll tap into the spark that keeps you burning and you’ll contribute to a growing global study on emotional resilience and long-term outcomes for changemakers.
Climate of Emotions transforms eco-anxiety into eco-optimism, and cultivates flourishing to design sustainable networks for lasting climate solutions.
What’s Next
After NYCCW, the journey continues. You’ll be invited to join and co-lead virtual COE sessions in October and November — and in 2026, apply for the COE Leadership Accelerator. You’ll also get access to the open-source COE Toolkit to bring this work to your community, and the chance to join collaborative global research on what really works to sustain changemakers.
Want in?
Be part of something that’s real, activating, and radically hopeful.
Let’s reimagine what sustainable leadership can be.
Virtual COE Sessions
Dates: October and November 2025
Following the in-person activation, participants will continue building their skills and connections through virtual sessions. These online gatherings deepen learning with the COE Toolkit and support participants in applying EQ strategies in their communities.
Past Events
COE: Emotional Intelligence for Sustainable Leadership
Virtual Workshop with the World Bank’s Connect4Climate
Date: June 19, 2025
Location: online
Hosted by: Six Seconds & the World Bank Group’s C4C
As part of the Climate Ambassador Program from the World Bank’s Connect4Climate initiative, Six Seconds facilitated a 90-minute virtual Climate of Emotions workshop for a global cohort of youth changemakers ages 15–30.
This interactive session invited participants to recharge, reflect, and strengthen the emotional intelligence skills essential for sustainable climate leadership. Through creative activities, peer-led tools, and real conversations, the session explored the emotional landscape of climate action — how feelings like anger, hope, grief, and determination shape advocacy and deepen connection.
Participants learned how to:
- Navigate the emotions behind climate work with greater awareness and skill
- Build trust through storytelling and shared experiences
- Clarify their personal “why” to stay grounded and motivated
- Use metaphor and creativity to unlock new ideas
- Apply EQ tools in their communities and C4C initiatives
The session supported the Connect and Learn goals of the Climate Ambassador Program, offering practical insights to help young leaders lead with authenticity, resilience, and purpose.
Innovating Climate Health Resilience with Emotional Intelligence
Virtual Workshop with the European Public Health Association
Date: May 13, 2025
Location: online
Hosted by: Six Seconds within EUPHA’s European Public Health Week
As part of European Public Health Week, Six Seconds hosted an official session exploring the intersection of climate change, emotional wellbeing, and public health.
During the live, interactive event participants learned how emotional intelligence (EQ) can be applied to:
- Reduce eco-anxiety, burnout, and grief
- Strengthen mental health among youth and frontline climate advocates
- Support a public health approach to climate resilience
The session included powerful storytelling, a walk-through of COE’s Theory of Change, and findings from the 2024 impact evaluation — demonstrating how emotional wellbeing is both a climate strategy and a public health imperative.
Climate emotions are public health indicators, and addressing them builds long-term community resilience.
By integrating psychosocial tools into climate and health systems, this session highlighted a low-cost, high-impact approach to supporting sustainable, community-led responses to the climate crisis.
Youth wellbeing is a foundation for a sustainable future — and they are asking to be supported emotionally.
COE Activation at NYC Week Climate 2024
Date: September 23, 2024
Location: New York City, USA
Hosted by: Six Seconds within NYC Climate Week 2024
Join us in New York for Engaging for the Future — Climate of Emotions, a 3-hour experiential program that equips youth climate activists with emotional intelligence (EQ) skills to transform their eco-anxiety into eco-optimism. The event will be intergenerational, and will center youth as the primary speakers and facilitators . Participants, including UNICEF Youth Advocates (present for the UN Summit) plus youth climate activists (present for NYC Climate Week), will engage in interactive sessions designed to foster intergenerational collaboration, develop emotional resilience, and build a shared commitment to climate action.
Climate of Emotions Session at COP28
Date: September 23, 2023
Location: SDG7 Global South Pavilion, Dubai, UAE
Hosted by: Six Seconds with SEforALL & GEAPP within COP28
In 2023, Sustainable Energy for All and the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet hosted the Climate of Emotions Activation at COP28, led by SEforAll Youth Ambassadors. Wanjira Mathai, Managing Director for Africa and Global Partnerships at WRI, Africa Advisor for Bezos Earth Fund, and daughter of the first African woman and first environmental activist to win the Nobel Peace Prize, opened the Climate of Emotions session at COP28. In her words: “Emotions are a form of renewable energy that can power people to change self and our world. To create a healthy global climate, we’ll need new approaches – and if we can deeply connect at an emotional level, we get the energy we need. Starting at the micro-level of connecting heart to heart, we can catalyze the changes we need at a macro level.”
