In June 2008 the British Council launched Challenge Europe - the European element of its global climate programme, Low Carbon Futures. Challenge Europe is a three-year campaign that aspires to make a definite and lasting impact on the climate change debate, and is ambitious in its aim to accelerate change to a Low Carbon Future.

This year Challenge Europe will be taking place in 15 countries across Europe: the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Great Britain (England, Scotland, Wales) Hungary, Ireland (the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland), Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Ukraine.

In each of the participating countries 15-20 young influencers, aged 18-35, will work together as Climate Advocates to unearth new ways to reduce carbon use or utilise methods already found but not yet properly exploited.  Each group offers a broad representation of skills, attitudes and ideas from all walks of life, working across disciplines to seek, gather, develop and then refine scores of ideas to agree just three concrete concepts. These concepts, they believe, will have real potential to bring about a Low Carbon Future through changes to public policy, business practice or public behaviour. The outcome will be a network of about two hundred bold and young influencers working together to develop 40 concrete, tangible ideas.

The groups will pitch these ideas to broader publics, including eminent experts, philanthropists, commercial organisations and entrepreneurs across a range of fields in an effort to turn the ideas into reality.

To find out more, visit the Challenge Europe website http://challengeeurope.britishcouncil.org/