As the climate crisis intensifies, regional leaders from across New York’s Finger Lakes area gathered in Rochester this weekend with a bold goal: to co-create an equitable, resilient path forward.
The 2025 Climate Solutions Summit brought together hundreds of community leaders, health professionals, youth advocates and residents for a day of skill-building, collaboration and reflection at the Rochester Riverside Convention Center. The theme this year — “Co-Creating Our Future” — centered equity and inclusivity as necessary parts of climate resilience.
“We’re really looking to help people understand what locally we can do to respond to the problem of climate change and related issues, because it does touch nearly every aspect of our lives,” said Abby McHugh-Grifa, executive director of the Climate Solutions Accelerator and lead organizer of the event. “And to get specific about what are the questions we need to be asking ourselves, and the different perspectives that we need to be balancing to make sure that as we transition to a clean-energy economy, that we're doing so in an equitable way.”
Sessions throughout the day explored clean energy, food systems, green workforce development, climate justice and the psychological toll of the crisis. Organizers said it's time to move beyond individualism and competition, and instead focus on collaboration across the region.
Among the speakers was 10th-grade student Devlin Rosen-Carole, who urged summit participants to make space for youths and underrepresented communities in climate work. Rosen-Carole runs a nonprofit that connects inner-city youths with natural environments to build emotional connections with the outdoors.
“We're really trying to get inner-city kids and bring them to natural spaces and foster an emotional connection between them and nature, because a lot of studies show that emotional connection with nature increases kids' chances to exhibit pro-environmental behaviors,” he said. “And so, intergenerational collaboration and emotional connection with nature — that’s what I’m really interested in.”
While Rosen-Carole praised the summit’s inclusive spirit, he noted the demographic makeup of attendees often skewed older and more privileged, missing an opportunity to fully reflect Rochester’s cultural and economic diversity.
Health professionals at the summit also spoke about the intersection between climate and public health. Dr. Jane Van Dis, an OB-GYN at the University of Rochester Medical Center and board member of the Climate Solutions Accelerator, pointed to the lack of public understanding as a major barrier to progress.
“One of the biggest barriers, I think, is number one, education. I think a lot of people don't know about the climate crisis. They know that the earth is warming, but they might not know how that's going to impact health and housing and transportation and energy,” she said. “We honestly all have to be part of the solution.”
Van Dis also addressed the growing environmental footprint of the health care sector. She raised concerns about polyester medical scrubs, now standard in her hospital, and the role of microplastics in local waterways, arguing that medical institutions must do more to lead on sustainability.
The summit’s keynote speaker, Kit Miller, offered a different kind of call to action — one grounded in emotional resilience and nonviolence. Miller, emeritus director of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, encouraged attendees to slow down, reclaim their focus and take care of their inner lives.
“I'm hearing people losing sleep, anxious, depressed. Of course, we've already had mental health issues, especially with younger people,” Miller said. “So, one of the things that we were talking about today is to reclaim our attention and to focus our attention differently — instead on becoming better at managing and releasing our own grief about what's happening in the world, to become more skilled at working with our anger.”
Miller believes emotional resilience is not just a personal responsibility, but also a cultural shift. She encouraged attendees to move from competition to collaboration and to design climate solutions that address social inequities at the same time.
According to the Pew Research Center, 63% of Americans now believe climate change is already affecting their local communities — up from 44% just a decade ago. And while 64% of Gen Z Americans report feeling passionate about climate change initiatives, surveys suggest many still feel disconnected from local efforts, pointing to a growing need for engagement at every level.
