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16-YEAR-OLD Nathan Sutcliffe from Dolgellau has been selected by the Welsh Assembly to be a Climate Champion..
Here is the first in a series of blogs from Nathan on the subject of climate change:

Hi everyone! I’m Nathan Sutcliffe and I’m 16-years-old. I’m writing my first blog ever for you from Dolgellau. Why? Well, three months ago, in January, I won a competition to become one of six Climate Change Champions, representing the views of young people on climate change and how to tackle it. At the launch, the six of us met up to discuss our projects, and we met the Environment Minister, Jane Davidson along with the press in our first real interviews.

My main goal as a Champion is to educate people in Dolgellau, especially young people, on how they can make a difference in the fight to tackle climate change. I want to communicate the steps we can all take to reduce our carbon footprint without making a huge difference to our lifestyles.

All the Climate Change Champions have a project that we will be working on to raise awareness of climate change in our communities. For my project I want to work with schools to plant trees. Although tree planting in Wales won’t reduce the amount of carbon emissions we produce, it will make a contribution to tackling global climate change, and will have a lot of local environmental benefits. My target number of trees? 100,000. It sounds ambitious, but I’ve already got 4000 done, and another 1000 are in the works, to be planted in a few weeks! I hope my project will educate children of all ages by taking them out of the classroom, and planting trees. I believe that the best way to educate people is by giving them hands on experience in the subject. I hope my project will be great fun but at the same time it’s good to do something to tackle climate change and help keep Wales safe for future generations of young people.

A few weeks ago, all the Champions met up again, this time at the Centre for Alternative Technology, or CAT, near Machynlleth. There, we planned the futures of our individual projects, discussed further meetings and displays at events such as the National Eisteddfod. We also learnt more ways to reduce our carbon footprint than you can shake a stick at! These included possible alternative building materials, recycled insulation, water powered trains… the list is huge! However, what intrigued me the most was one of the more commercial ideas shown. A wood-pellet boiler, since the only fuel burned in it is wood, it makes the heating costs for your house completely carbon neutral, and as long as the pellets are from a sustainable source, it has zero impact on the environment. Admittedly, they require extra space for an automatic feeder, or free time to feed the pellets in, but this aside, they are a good idea for new houses, and cheaper than normal boilers in the long run too.

When I met up with the other Champions, we also set up our own Facebook group - ‘Our Future, Our Voice / Ein Dyfodol, Ein Llais’ - why not join? It’s a place where you can discuss anything climate change related. It’s a place where you can have your say.