First-Ever Munich Climate Week Opens as European Cities Take Climate Awareness to the Streets

Munich opened the first-ever Munich Climate Week on 19 October 2026, and Spain’s Basque Country is running its own climate and energy week at the same time — a sign that climate awareness is moving out of conference halls and into city streets, just weeks before COP31.

The Munich Climate Week runs from 19 to 25 October as a city-wide, community-powered initiative bringing together business, academia, politics and the public. It is the event’s first edition. In parallel, the Basque region’s AsteKlima — its Climate and Energy Week — is under way from 16 to 25 October with more than 200 free activities across the region.

Munich Climate Week: a stadium lit in climate stripes

FC Bayern is a strategic partner of the Munich Climate Week. From 22 to 24 October the club’s Allianz Arena is being illuminated in the colours of the climate stripes — the blue-to-red warming-stripes graphic — while nine “sustainability tours” organised together with Allianz connect the stadium experience with sustainability themes.

Together with UnternehmerTUM and MakerSpace, FC Bayern is also hosting a “wear it longer” workshop: participants design and print a limited-edition range of T-shirts made from GOTS-certified fabrics, with the focus on the responsible use of sportswear. The week closes on 25 October with FC Bayern Basketball, when the floor of the BMW Park arena is lit up in the climate stripes and Bavaria’s State Minister for Environmental and Consumer Protection, Thorsten Glauber, is expected to attend.

“FC Bayern does not just want to send out visible messages for Bavarian Climate Week and Munich Climate Week: together with our partners, we want to educate about climate and sustainability issues, encourage conversation and present practical everyday actions that can have an effect beyond the campaign period,” said Rouven Kasper, FC Bayern board member for marketing and sales. The club and the Allianz Arena operating company have been members of the Bavarian Climate Alliance since 2015.

TÜV SÜD, a founding partner of the week, is contributing a recycling workshop, a joint environmental campaign in Munich’s Westend district and an expert forum on the future of carbon dioxide removal and carbon markets. “The Munich Climate Week comes at the right time and in the right place,” said Dr Céline Bilolo, the company’s Chief Sustainability Officer. The official programme also lists a Climate Startup Pitch Battle and a “Climate Fresk of Nations” workshop at the Altes Rathaus on 24 October.

Basque Country: 200 free activities under one slogan

Further west, the Basque Government’s Climate and Energy Week — AsteKlima — is organised by Ihobe, the public company of the Department of Industry, Energy Transition and Sustainability, together with the Basque Energy Agency. The week offers more than 200 free activities in Donostia (San Sebastián) and across the region’s three historical territories, aiming to bring climate action closer to citizens and accelerate the local energy transition.

Under the slogan “Your footprint starts with every gesture”, the programme encourages reflection on how everyday habits around mobility, consumption, energy and food can make a difference. The Fundación Cristina Enea is taking part with guided walks, exhibitions and autumn art laboratories, and is publishing key data from two studies — an analysis of the social perception of climate change among Donostia citizens and a sustainability and climate report — on its channels during the week.

A trend: cities take awareness into the streets

Both weeks fit a wider pattern: with COP31 opening in Antalya on 9 November, cities are staging their own awareness moments rather than waiting for the summit. Public attention is already high — in Britain, 85 percent of adults said this month that climate change had affected them in the past year, according to the national statistics office.

The message from both cities is the same: climate action is not only negotiated in summit halls — it is practised in streets, stadiums and workshops, one gesture at a time.