Saturday – Climate Shop, Aberystwyth

This radical initiative, opening 18th September, helps us understand that whenever we buy new things the natural world and climate suffer. Donated household gear is repaired and sold at affordable prices with the proceeds planting carbon-hungry trees in Kenya. Aside from the carbon, other benefits include less landfill, cheap accessible gear for low-income communities, trees boost biodiversity and provide a range of benefits for local farmers.

Saturday – NFU Cymru president on net-zero farming, Merhyr Cynog

John Davies is NFU Cymru’s President and is working towards a carbon and biodiversity friendly future for Welsh farming, including being a key part of NFU Cymru’s plan to be net-zero by 2040. John is also an upland beef and sheep farmer who makes forage for feeding his stock year-round, right on the farm. Diverse habitats and increased tree cover contribute to carbon capture and provide research topics for the NFU Cymru Net Zero Steering Group.

Saturday – Swansea Environment Centre

The Environment Centre has been a community hub for environmental action in Swansea for over 25 years. It is a base for many projects and events including a monthly Repair Café where locals get broken items repaired for free by volunteers. The Centre’s green shop sells refills, plastic-free and ethical products.

Sunday – Car-Y- Môr, St Davids

Câr-Y-Môr is a community benefit society in St Davids whose 3D ocean farming system grows fresh, ethically produced shellfish and seaweed. The produce has a range of innovative uses, including plastic alternatives, cosmetics and agricultural feed. It requires zero inputs such as pesticides or fertilisers—all the while sequestering carbon and rebuilding ecosystems, making it one of the most sustainable forms of food production on the planet.

Sunday – Connecting Communities, Machynlleth

UNESCO Dyfi Biosphere’s communities are divided by dangerous roads. They want to cycle to school and work, to walk to their local shops and breathe clean are. The communities here are calling for better cycling infrastructure, fewer cars on the roads and for the remaining vehicles to be electric and shared where possible. Communities cyclists wanting to raise awareness of these issues will join the Climate Cymru tour on safe sections between Aberystwyth and Machynlleth ending in a community gathering in the town centre.

Sunday – The Centre for Alternative Technology

The Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) is an internationally renowned environmental charity  whose eco centre offers inspiration, education and training in solutions to the climate and biodiversity emergency for a wide range of audiences.

The Zero Carbon Britain Hub and Innovation Lab at CAT provides support for councils, communities and other organisations to act on the climate and biodiversity emergency.

Monday – Marine Renewable Energy, Pembroke Dock

In the de-industrialised area of Milford Haven Waterway, strategic partners are bringing together technology developers, leading research and the public sector to establish Wales as a global leader in sustainable marine energy generation. With Wales’ coastline, marine renewable energy has the potential to be a key player in the transition to low-carbon energy as well as supplying quality green jobs to ensure a just transition for workers currently employed by high-carbon industries.

Monday – Community Farm, Swansea

For over twenty years Swansea Community Farm has offered volunteers a wonderful space to care for livestock, wildlife and each other to improve community wellbeing and resilience.

The farm involves young people and disadvantaged groups in growing good, local food on-site and lends livestock to grazing regimes at a neighbouring nature reserve, helping maintain rich wildlife habitats.

Monday – Limitless Energy

The Green Tour is making an overnight stop in a carbon-positive eco-home and the headquarters of Swansea-based domestic renewables company Limitless Energy.

The eco home has been built from bricks constructed of shredded pallet wood and crushed concrete dust reclaimed from landfill in South Wales. It is heated by ground source heating, and solar panels provide the electricity for house and car.

Monday – Citizens action in the slate towns, Snowdonia

The “Region that the Roofed the World” has recently been named a UNESCO world heritage site, and now leads the way on practical action to cap rising temperatures. Community-owned renewable energy, ecological reparation and green tourism are a few of the citizen-driven projects in North Gwynedd. Activists in the area are also urging local government to act meaningfully on the climate and nature emergencies.

Tuesday – Awel Aman Tawe Community Windfarm, Neath Port Talbot

Awel Aman Tawe in Neath Port Talbot is a community energy charity re-investing revenues from its wind power generation project to benefit the surrounding community. They have just bought a former primary school and are lovingly refurbishing it as a Zero-Carbon Arts, Education and Enterprise Centre – Hub y Gors.

Tuesday – Go Gwyrdd! Bangor

A collection of events inspired by African environmentalists with a love form Wales – seminars, spoken word, art, beach-cleans and films presented by North Wales Africa Society.

The global implications of the climate and nature emergencies will be highlighted and there will be a chance to take action in the local community, meet new people, and show care and protection for our environment.

Wednesday – Drosi Bikes, Llangollen

Drosi Bikes is a social enterprise that retrofits bikes to make them electric and sells them at affordable prices. E-bikes take the very hard work out of travelling in the mountains and can provide a solution to gaps in poor quality rural public transport. Leading by example, the founder Beth Ward, commutes daily on her e-bike across a mountain pass. The project also offers community bike maintenance workshops and recycles donated bikes.

Going green at National Trust Cymru’s Bodnant Garden

At National Trust Cymru we’re proud to be championing greener energy solutions at our places in Wales, with over 80% of our energy needs now sourced from renewables.

As a Grade I listed garden with 80 acres of formal beds, borders, woodland and meadow, National Trust Cymru’s Bodnant Garden in Conwy is already pretty green. But by using renewable energy we’re doing our bit to make the way we operate more efficient and sustainable for the future.

Wednesday – Bike Ride, Bute Park

On Car Free Day, Sustrans Cymru held a cycle ride, where people were encouraged to bring their own bikes or hire bikes from Pedal Power, a not-for-profit cycle hire organisation. The idea was to raise awareness of the importance of active travel so the fully inclusive event was suitable for all cycling abilities and adapted cycles were available. Children were also welcome for those with childcare barriers.  

Thursday – Mock COP, Wales

Young people across Wales are raising their voices for action needed on the nature and climate emergencies. This mock COP (model UN climate conferences) will give them a chance to put themselves in the shoes of different countries around the world, and to negotiate solutions from the perspective of the country they are assigned. Participants will use what they’ve learned to make practical recommendations in their schools, communities and to political leaders.

Thursday – Dyffryn Gardens, Vale of Glamorgan

At National Trust Cymru, we’re committed to playing our part to restore and protect our natural environment, with the ambition to be carbon net zero by 2030 and restore 4,600 hectares of priority habitat across Wales by 2025.

The right gardening decisions can make a big difference to our native flora and fauna, and at Dyffryn Gardens in the Vale of Glamorgan, we’re proud to be putting nature at the heart of what we do.

Thursday – Wrexham Green Infrastructure Project

The WGIP has reinvigorated the green infrastructure of two of the most socially deprived areas of Wrexham; Caia Parc and Plas Madoc. By introducing wildflower meadows, fruit orchards and pollinator beds, both projects have improved the levels of biodiversity, health and wellbeing of people within these estates. We look forward to meeting those most involved at both locations throughout the day

Friday – Youth Climate Strikes, Cardiff

Fridays For Future is a youth led movement that began in 2018 when 15 yr old Greta Thunburg sat down outside Swedish parliament. By September 2019, millions of people where on the streets demanding action. The next global climate strike happens on Friday the 24th September, and we’ll be in Cardiff with the Welsh Youth activists to hear what they have to say.

Friday – Pontnewydd Primary School

Pontnewydd Primary School make sure that their pupils are aware of environmental issues by covering them in their school curriculum. Teacher Laura Vaughan used Climate Cymru resources to lead lessons with Year 5 Pupils on “the Wales we want to see”. Pupils designed postcards to Welsh leaders telling them what they want their country to look like when they grow up and added their pupils’ voices to the Climate Cymru campaign so they can be heard at COP26.

Friday – Lake Vyrnwy, Powys

The RSPB’s Lake Vyrnwy farm is the largest organic farm in Wales and supports farming activities that benefit farmland wildlife and local communities.

Since 2006 the RSPB has been working to restore peatland habitats in the area. Protecting and restoring critical ecosystems like this one will absorb carbon, help reverse the decline in biodoversity and create habitat for threatened species such as the Curlew.

Saturday – Pontypridd

Community members in Pontypridd have prepared a bill of rights for the River Taff.

“Our community has not had a chance to come together to reflect on the devastating flooding of 2020 and think about our future. We hope this ceremony is a positive way to begin this process. It is an opportunity to make peace with the River Taff, reconnect with the river and better understand the important role the Taff plays in our lives and in support of nature.

Saturday – Llani Car Club

Building on the success of these new clubs we intend offering more mid Wales communities the chance of having their own EV car club.  The initial setting up is reliant on grant funding due to the cost of EVs. It is money well spent because it means that more people, especially those who cannot afford an EV can share one as and when they need it. This not only shares the burden of the cost of a car, reduces CO2 emissions, it also contributes to the much-needed reduction in the number of cars on the road.

As we move from one event to the next we’ll stop off at iconic Welsh nature locations to showcase the natural beauty of the Wales we love.

• Ancient Celtic forest
• Spectacular coastline
• Welsh mountains
• Biodiversity hotpots
• Lakes and rivers

Our Writer-in-Residence

Conservationist, poet and community worker Suzanne Iuppa will support the Climate.Cymru tour, recording voices and stories en-route and linking projects’ own words to the media, and our blog. She hopes to weave a soundscape of language and impressions from the Tour, to make a collective voice poem which will travel all the way to COP26. 

Twitter @wildernesspoet

Instagram @wildernesspoetsuzanne