Is It Bad to Say “I’m Going to NYC Climate Week”?

For the past 15 years, the Climate Group has hosted a platform for climate-focused events in NYC the same week as the UN general assembly (and, coincidently, my birthday). They call it Climate Week NYC (though everyone else calls it NYC Climate Week) and this year it is Sept 17th -  24th.

And it’s a thing. The impact of NYC Climate Week goes well beyond the Climate Group’s main programs and official 400+ event listings, inspiring sister events like the Denmark Ministry’s Sustainability Summit and influencing climate-focused orgs to change up their marketing and press strategies to cater to the occasion. Climate Group claims it’s the biggest global climate event of its kind. In response, groups like Women and Climate and Climate Tech New York have been helping their members prepare to navigate NYC Climate Week since July.

NYC Climate Week is a great opportunity to expand our knowledge and network and bolster our sustainability, adaptation, mitigation, and resilience work. And… all the hype is making a lot of people nervous, overwhelmed, and intimidated. Of course it is. If you think “I’m going to the biggest climate event in the world”, it’s easy to feel small, or unprepared, or not good enough. You may think those feeling are unavoidable for attending this event, but they’re not.

That’s because while it might be true that you are going to NYC Climate Week, it’s not a fact. You can’t physically go to or do “NYC Climate Week”, but you can go to the Climate Week NYC Opening Ceremony, the Climate Leaders’ Reception, or the The Hub Live (though chances are, you’re not, since those are invite-only events for a small subset of leaders from business, government, and the climate sector. And if you are: hell yeah!!)

Saying you’re going to NYC Climate Week is shorthand for “I’m attending one or more events in NYC during the week of Sept 17th, under the umbrella event of NYC Climate Week.”  Stating it plainly causes less internal drama, right? That’s because it’s just the facts of the matter, and facts don’t cause feelings, your thoughts do.

So if you’re nervous, overwhelmed, or unsure of yourself when it comes to NYC Climate Week, take a look at what you’re telling yourself. Is believing all the hype getting you excited in a helpful way, or is it causing doubts and uncomfortable feelings? How could you frame what you’re doing more simply? What are some ways of looking at just the facts that are calming to you? Or are motivating and exciting in a good way?

The facts of NYC Climate Week for me are that I’m taking the week off from my job with NYC DOT so that I can attend approximately 15 events on topics that are important to me. I’m doing this to further build my network of other climate professionals, so that I can hear about their work and help support them with mine. And I am feeling pretty damn excited (in a good way) about that.

Still feeling nervous? There’s still time to register for my Make Networking Easy workshop on Sept 16th.