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Women Leaders Drive Climate Action at Aspen Ideas: Climate Chicago 2025

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Business Honor - Women Leaders at Aspen Climate 2025

Business Honor
22 August, 2025

Aspen Ideas: Climate Chicago 2025 women leaders are pushing climate action forward through grassroots activism and innovation.

On the first day of the Aspen Ideas: Climate Chicago 2025 conference, dozens of scientists, policymakers, and activists gathered to address the climate crisis and find new solutions. Among the most poignant discussions was the leadership of women fighting against climate change, especially with Trump's administration’s federal policy rollbacks. Federal support for renewable energy and climate projects has been drastically reduced, and thus numerous projects aimed at the climate are struggling to be initiated. Some women have taken leadership roles at the state and local government levels, advocating powerful solutions.

Bernadette Woods Placky, Climate Central's chief meteorologist, emphasized connecting climate science to everyday life. Discussing something people can touch can help sustain public support for action on climate, said Placky. "Weather is the tangible way people are experiencing it," she said, stressing that media should highlight the majority of the public worried about climate change and not the minority of climate skeptics.

At the grassroots level, women such as those from organizations like Moms Clean Air Force (MCAF) are spearheading winning advocacy campaigns. Patrice Tomcik, a senior national field director for MCAF, explained how mothers in Pennsylvania united to prevent fracking close to schools, eventually winning air monitoring promises from the drilling firm. Elizabeth Hauptman of Michigan is toiling day and night to replace diesel school buses with electric buses, showing how community-level actions have spillover effects in the community.

These women are transforming the climate conversation by merging grassroots organizing, scientific expertise, and a desire to ensure that generations to come have a healthy planet to inhabit. While there are challenges, most prominently with the loss of federal funding, the new women's leadership brings optimism for successful action on climate in the face of adversity.