Warming Up Festival 2026

Not out of indifference, but because of mental exhaustion. Because of climate anxiety and guilt. Because of a system that places the emphasis on individual responsibility, while the biggest polluters and fossil fuel subsidies largely remain out of the spotlight. And sometimes also because a climate movement that seems to demand perfection rather than participation.

You can’t save the world alone. Fortunately, you don’t have to. Warming Up Festival therefore takes a different approach: solidarity instead of penance.

For four days, the festival brings together art, journalism, music and conversation around the question of how individual choices relate to systems that are largely beyond our control, and where we can actually make a difference as a collective. It is a festival that makes room for imperfection, for doubt and for new forms of engagement.

Climate issues never exist in isolation. They are inextricably linked to inequality, colonial history and geopolitics. From climate migration to the food crisis, from Sudan to the legacy of colonialism in the Caribbean and the Pacific: Warming Up explores how these stories are interconnected. Not as a digression, but because climate justice without these connections is no justice at all.

The climate movement itself is not exempt from scrutiny. The transition to a greener world depends on a supply chain of raw materials that is rarely discussed. The extraction of cobalt and other materials for batteries is associated with exploitation and violence in many places. If we are serious about climate justice, we also need to confront this reality. Just as we need to ask who can afford flight shame, who gets to shape the climate conversation, and who is already experiencing the consequences of the climate crisis every day.

You don’t have to do everything right to do something good. Warming Up Festival invites you to explore these questions together — not from a place of guilt, but from the conviction that change begins by making connections and building solidarity.

Reserve your spot — the conversation begins on 19 November.