The 3rd year Hungarian Climate Advocates are already hard at work and are delighted to have taken their Mobile Climate Office to the Sziget Festival, the largest open air music festival in Budapest. The Office has found its perfect venue at the festival being situated in the H20 venue, where, not surprisingly, water is the subject in hand. This is a great location for the office as the issues of water and climate change are strongly interrelated.

After eagerly preparing the office for 2 months the 3rd year advocates, readily supported by the 1st and 2nd year cohort, were delighted to receive visitors from Hungary the Netherlands, Italy and France to the Mobile Climate Office. The main aims for the office at the festival, is to raise awareness about climate change and to highlight the connection between climate change and a future water crisis.

The Mobile Climate Office offers a wide range of activities including a climate quiz and an opportunity to calculate carbon footprints. The advocates are looking to find the most climate friendly travellers attending the festival by comparing the carbon footprint used by visitors to get from their home to the festival site. Travellers with the lowest carbon emissions are being recorded on the wall of the Climate Office. Currently two Dutch ladies that arrived at the festival on a party train with 900 other revellers are topping the list. Do you think you could beat it?

The advocates are also calculating people’s carbon footprint in their daily life and some of the office’s teenage visitors were proud to be branded with a henna tattoo showing their current emission levels. These tattoos took the form of human footprints but a future idea might be to use funky, animal footprints such as squirrels, koalas, hedgehogs, lemurs, or even geckos! As well as tattoos many have also left the office with prizes! By spinning the climate wheel and answer questions about climate change and water, visitors have the chance to win free bicycle rental and other low-carbon gifts.

Greg Dorey, the British Ambassador to Hungary also popped in during this first day to see how the Hungarian advocates are managing the Mobile Climate Office. He also took the opportunity to view the beautiful pictures exhibited from another successful British Council programme, the Rivers of the World.

Everyone agrees that the first day of the Festival has been a huge success and with wonderful weather and four more full days of activities still to come, the enthusiastic Hungarian team is expecting hundreds more visitors to the Mobile Climate Office.
 

Photos: Marianna Klara Vertesi

 You can find more photos and blog entries by the British Ambassador in Hungary here