World Environment Day: A Global Call to Climate Action
This year’s theme for World Environment Day is A Global Call to Climate Action.
Climate action is not just about reducing carbon emissions and supporting economies, industries and communities to transition to net zero. It also encompasses adapting human and non-human systems to withstand the impacts of climate change, improving the ways we respond to, recover from and plan for the increasingly frequent and intense natural disasters and extreme weather events, and rethinking the ways we collaborate across all layers of Government, businesses, grassroots organisations and individuals and include the voices of those most affected by climate change to ensure equitable action.
It goes without saying that climate action is no small feat.
As a public policy evaluation firm, we have had the privilege to support state and Commonwealth governments in Australia to design, implement, track, evaluate and improve a range of strategies and programs in the climate action ecosystem. We have found that, in the pursuit of rigour and comprehensiveness, evaluators and program designers in the climate sector (including us!) can develop unintentionally complex monitoring and evaluation framework (M&E Frameworks).
In attempting to capture the nuance and scale of climate action interventions, these M&E Frameworks often comprise long lists of indicators, data sources and measurement requirements. While well‑intentioned, such expansive frameworks can overwhelm those responsible for implementation, leading to delays in data collection and reporting or abandoned learning processes.
When dealing with a threat as existential as climate change, it’s easy to feel like nothing is ever good enough. When people’s lives and livelihoods and the health of our ecosystems are on the line, perfection starts to seem like the only worthy measure of successful climate action.
So how do we mitigate this overwhelm and paralysis?
I won’t pretend to be an expert on the matter, but I can offer two pieces of hopeful advice gained from my experiences supporting climate action interventions in designing and implementing M&E Frameworks.
- Don’t use all data all the time: This may seem counterintuitive. I am not suggesting you lower your expectations. Rather, cut yourself some slack and be strategic with the data you use to understand the performance or progress of your climate action intervention. I have found that setting Key Monitoring Questions helps clients hone their monitoring data collection efforts and focus reflective activities on delivering meaningful answers. You may be collecting a breadth of information through the delivery of your climate action intervention, but only using a subset of this evidence in evaluative reflections will help you feel less overwhelmed.
- Reflect regularly: I’m sure the suggestion for more meetings is groan-worthy. Yet regular reflective activities (even just once or twice a year) encourage an evaluative culture where gaps that are usually seen as “shortcomings” or “failures” are reframed as learnings and can be identified and addressed early. Reflective activities are opportunities to take a breath and take stock of where you’re at, and ask yourselves if your goals and the data you’re collecting is still meaningful. Where perfection can be the enemy of good, jointly reflecting on progress and considering actions to improve delivery will help you overcome paralysis.
Climate action is no small feat. And neither is monitoring and evaluating your climate action interventions. However, when applied strategically, monitored evidence and evaluative reflections are tools that can ease some of the associated existential stress.
If you are interested in learning more about Key Monitoring Questions, I will be presenting about this topic at the Australian Evaluation Society’s 2026 International Evaluation Conference in Darwin on Wednesday September 16 at 3:00pm. Let’s have a chat!
