Climate action can be pictured as scientists collecting field data, engineers designing renewable energy systems, or researchers modeling future climate scenarios.
Less attention is given to the people working behind the scenes to turn ideas into policies, secure funding for climate projects, and build the partnerships necessary to create change at scale.
In my conversation with climate policy professional Hanka Kirby, I learned that climate action requires far more than technical expertise alone. It depends on communication, collaboration, stakeholder engagement, and a deep understanding of decision-making processes.
From grassroots climate advocacy to attending United Nations negotiations, Ms. Kirby’s journey demonstrates that there are many pathways into climate work and that meaningful impact can come from people with a wide range of skills and backgrounds.
Discovering Climate Change Through Curiosity
For Ms. Kirby, the path into climate policy began long before graduate school or professional climate work.
Growing up, she was fascinated by nature and wildlife. Birdwatching became an important hobby, and she spent much of her childhood learning about the natural world around her. Despite this interest, climate change itself was not something she had deeply studied in school.
That changed when she was a teenager. While homesick one day, she watched two documentaries: Before the Flood and Chasing Coral. The films exposed her to the realities of climate change, ocean acidification, and environmental degradation on a scale she had never fully understood before.
What struck her most was realizing how little formal education she had received about climate change despite its growing importance. From there on, rather than simply voicing concern, she decided to take action.
Taking the First Step Through Climate Advocacy
Many students assume they need advanced degrees or technical expertise before they can contribute to climate action.
Ms. Kirby’s experience suggests otherwise. One of her first opportunities came through a grassroots organization called Our Climate, where she began learning about carbon pricing and climate advocacy.
Soon afterward, she became involved with Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL), an organization that mobilizes volunteers to advocate for climate legislation at local, state, and federal levels. For the next seven years, she participated in climate lobbying efforts, helping communicate climate solutions directly to policymakers.
At the time, she did not consider herself a confident public speaker. Yet through repeated conversations with legislators, community members, and fellow advocates, she gradually developed skills in communication, persuasion, and policy engagement.
Looking back, these experiences played a major role in shaping her career. They showed her that climate solutions are not only technical challenges. There are also communication challenges. Even the most effective climate solutions require people who can explain them, advocate for them, and build support around them.
What Does Climate Policy Work Actually Look Like?
Climate policy can sound abstract from the outside. Many people imagine policymakers spending their days debating legislation or writing laws. In reality, the work is much broader.
As Ms. Kirby explained, policy is embedded in nearly every aspect of daily life. The amount of allowed minerals in water that comes out of a faucet. The safety standards for consumer products. The environmental protections surrounding air and water quality. All of these decisions are shaped by policy.
Policy professionals often spend their time researching issues, writing policy briefs, analyzing legislation, engaging stakeholders, communicating technical information, and working with government officials. A major part of the job involves translating complexity into clarity.
Legislators are responsible for making decisions across countless topics. They are rarely experts in climate science, energy systems, transportation, agriculture, or environmental engineering. As a result, policy professionals serve as interpreters. They take complicated technical information and transform it into language that decision-makers can understand and act upon. In many ways, climate policy sits at the intersection of science, economics, communication, and governance.
How Policy Change Happens in Practice
One of the most interesting parts of our discussion focused on how policy change actually occurs. From the outside, legislation can appear slow, confusing, and highly political.
Yet, Ms. Kirby’s experience working with Citizens’ Climate Lobby provided insight into how change often begins. Advocates meet directly with elected officials and their staff. They present research, explain policy proposals, answer questions, and discuss how proposed solutions might affect local communities.
Importantly, these conversations are not simply about climate science. They are also about economics, public priorities, and political realities. For example, when discussing carbon pricing policies, conversations often focus on how costs and benefits would affect households, businesses, and communities. Policymakers want to understand how legislation will impact the people they represent. Successful policy proposals often emerge through compromise, stakeholder engagement, and collaboration across political perspectives.
While this process can be slow, Ms. Kirby emphasized that meaningful policy change is often the result of persistent engagement over long periods of time.
Understanding Climate Finance
While many climate conversations focus on reducing emissions, another critical question is: How do communities actually pay for climate solutions? This question motivated Ms. Kirby to explore climate finance during her graduate studies.
Her master’s research examined how developing countries access international climate finance for adaptation and resilience projects.
Climate finance refers to funding that supports efforts to address climate change. This may include renewable energy projects, climate adaptation initiatives, disaster resilience programs, infrastructure improvements, ecosystem restoration, and many other activities.
At international climate conferences, such as those held by the United Nations, wealthier countries often pledge funding to support developing countries facing climate-related challenges. However, securing and distributing those funds is often far more complicated than it appears.
Between pledges, funding mechanisms, application processes, project requirements, and implementation challenges, there are numerous barriers that can prevent resources from reaching the communities that need them most.
Why Adaptation Finance Matters
A major focus of Ms. Kirby’s research involved climate adaptation.
While mitigation aims to reduce future emissions, adaptation focuses on helping communities prepare for and respond to climate impacts that are already occurring. This distinction is particularly important for many developing countries.
Small island nations, for example, contribute only a tiny fraction of global greenhouse gas emissions. Yet they often face some of the most severe climate risks, including sea-level rise, coastal erosion, stronger storms, and changing weather patterns.
Through her research, Ms. Kirby became especially interested in Pacific Small Island Developing States. She was struck by how actively these countries participate in international climate negotiations despite their small populations and limited resources. Their leaders consistently advocate for stronger climate action while also seeking the resources needed to protect vulnerable communities. For many of these nations, climate adaptation is not a future concern. It is already a present-day necessity.
The Hidden Challenge: Capacity Building
One of the most surprising insights from Ms. Kirby’s research was that money alone is not always enough. Many organizations and government agencies in developing countries face significant capacity constraints.
Even when funding opportunities exist, applying for grants, managing projects, collecting environmental data, and meeting reporting requirements can be difficult with limited staff and resources. As a result, one of the most valuable forms of climate investment may actually be capacity building.
Capacity building involves training professionals, strengthening institutions, improving technical expertise, and providing the resources necessary for organizations to manage projects effectively.
Without these foundations, even well-funded adaptation efforts can struggle. Ms. Kirby observed that many climate finance recipients increasingly advocate for investments that strengthen local expertise and institutional capacity alongside traditional infrastructure projects. This allows communities not only to implement individual projects but also to build long-term resilience.
Observing International Climate Negotiations
One of the most unique experiences in Ms. Kirby’s career was attending preparatory negotiations connected to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). These meetings bring together representatives from countries around the world to discuss climate policy, adaptation, finance, loss and damage, and other global climate priorities.
For students who primarily encounter climate change through headlines and reports, it can be difficult to appreciate the complexity of these negotiations. Every country enters discussions with different priorities, vulnerabilities, economic realities, and political constraints.
Watching these conversations firsthand gave Ms. Kirby a deeper appreciation for the challenges of international cooperation. At the same time, it reinforced the importance of maintaining dialogue. Climate change is a global challenge that cannot be solved by any single country acting alone.
Progress depends on coordination, negotiation, and shared commitment across borders.
Advice for Students Interested in Climate Careers
Toward the end of our conversation, I asked Ms. Kirby what advice she would give to students who want to contribute to climate action but are unsure where to begin. Her answer was surprisingly simple.
Talk to people.
Throughout her career, she has found that individuals working in climate are often remarkably willing to share their experiences, answer questions, and support newcomers entering the field.
Informational interviews, networking conversations, conferences, and community events can all open doors to new opportunities. More importantly, they help students discover career pathways they may never have considered otherwise.
Ms. Kirby emphasized that many opportunities emerge through relationships rather than formal applications alone. Building connections, maintaining those relationships, and staying engaged with the broader climate community can have a significant impact on future career opportunities.
She also encouraged students to explore the wide variety of roles available within climate work. Not everyone needs to become a scientist or engineer.
The climate sector needs communicators, policy analysts, economists, lawyers, educators, data scientists, project managers, financiers, and community organizers. There is no single pathway into climate action.
Looking Ahead
Climate action depends on far more than technology alone. We often celebrate breakthroughs in renewable energy, artificial intelligence, and environmental science. Yet behind every successful climate initiative are people working to secure funding, build partnerships, communicate ideas, shape policy, and ensure solutions reach the communities that need them.
Climate adaptation and resilience are ultimately about people. They are about helping communities prepare for an uncertain future while creating systems capable of responding to change.
For students interested in making an impact, Ms. Kirby’s story offers an encouraging reminder: you do not need to have all the answers before you begin. The first step can be simply staying curious, asking questions, and starting conversations.
Those conversations may ultimately shape the path that follows.