These Champions are young people of school age, selected to help spread the word about climate change and to get others involved. We are working with in-country partners, initially the G8+5 (Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, UK, USA) during 2008, to help set up Climate Champion initiatives. Other countries will follow on later.

Each country involved will select three people to be International Climate Champions. The Champions, aged 16-18 years, attended a meeting in London in late March 2008, to prepare for the G8 Environment Ministers’ Meeting in Kobe in May.

How did the ICC programme start?
The International Climate Champions initiative is based on a successful UK programme run by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in 2006. This project gives youth a voice, increases positive media coverage and helps individuals, schools, communities and many others tackle climate change.

What will the International Climate Champions be doing in London & Kobe?
The Champions visited London in March and Kobe, Japan in May 2008. In London they will develop and announce three aspirational challenges for G8 Environment Ministers.

Each challenge is a statement which tries to capture the main concerns and hopes which young people hold in regard to climate change.

Young people from all over the world will then be invited to vote for the option they prefer. The preferred option, to be called the Kobe Challenge, will then be taken to Kobe and presented to the Environment Ministers.

A part of the Kobe Challenge is a commitment from each Champion to complete a climate change project in their country, within a year, which they will report on.

ICC Air Travel Offsetting
The International Climate Champions around the world encourage everyone to be aware of and reduce their own climate change footprint. It’s vital we try to avoid creating emissions, use alternatives where possible (such as the train) and when we can’t, offset those emissions through a recognised provider.

Our air travel offsets support the Malavalli Biomass Power Project in Southern India. The Project uses agricultural waste to make electricity and heat, has created at least 500 jobs - and farmers make extra money by selling their waste to the Project. We use PURE (www.puretrust.org.uk), a charity, who give funds to the Malavalli Project and have pledged to meet the UK Government’s code of best practise.

The Project meets both the United Nations and ‘gold standard’ Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) certification. Please also see our environmental policy