An Taisce held the Climate Ambassador Awards recently in the Morrison Hotel, recognising the tremendous effort and dedication demonstrated by volunteers throughout the year. Each Climate Ambassador received a certificate and some sustainable gifts, with an additional ten awards presented to secondary school students, PhD students, a podcast duo, farmers market organisers, Tidy Towns volunteers, and employees from PwC, Vyra, and Microsoft.
In 2023, Climate Ambassadors completed 331 climate actions, directly engaging over 710,000 people, creating 2,013 climate communications, reaching an estimated 4.6 million people!
Climate Ambassadors receive training at the start of the year in climate science, solutions and communications which enables them to carry out climate actions. Throughout the year they are asked to undertake four key tasks – two climate communications and two climate actions, though many participants achieve a lot more. Out of 179 citizens, these Dubliners received the Climate Ambassador Award for going above and beyond.
One of which was Luke Fagan from Dublin offered his fellow Climate Ambassadors the opportunity to complete an online course for Earth Week. He organised high-profile webinars on climate change, plastic and biodiversity with senior guests from the World Bank and KBI Global Investors. He also organised beach cleans, litter picks and carried out a survey on climate at Electric Picnic. He commented “It was great to meet people with the same interest in climate action from across Ireland, each bringing their own experience with climate change. It is easy to feel daunted by such a multi-faceted challenge, but it was very empowering to be part of a group taking such a variety of approaches”.
