Two-day festival to focus on the climate

THE FIRST Shetland Climate Festival will take place in Lerwick in June.

The Shetland Islands Council event will be held at the Clickimin Leisure Centre over two days on 9/10 June.

The festival, which builds on the work of Shetland Climate Week 2022, will feature an exhibition hall showcasing organisations which are working on the six themes of the Shetland net zero route map.

These themes are transport, energy, resource use, nature based solutions, building/energy efficiency, and business and industry.

Alongside the exhibition hall there will be programme of workshops, presentations, demonstrations and other sessions to “inform, involve, and empower the community to be able to make climate positive changes in their lives”.

Local schools have also been invited to submit climate-themed projects for display, and will be given the opportunity to meet with the organisations involved.

The programme will include a range of national and local organisations, highlighting the sector leading work to tackle climate change being undertaken in Shetland.

Confirmed events include a lecture by climate change campaigner and strategist Tessa Kahn, and talk by Dr Nigel Jollands and Veronica Lysaght of the Novara One World Project who will visit Shetland aboard the Arctic Icebreaking yacht, Novara.

Members of the public will have the opportunity to visit the yacht, hear about the work of the project and discuss how remote and rural communities are tackling issues of climate change.

There will also be opportunities to discover more about local and sustainable food with Taste of Shetland.

A full programme, including local and national participants will be released on Shetland Islands Council’s climate change webpages in the coming months.

Chair of the SIC’s environment and transport committee Moraig Lyall said: “The festival highlights the essential work being undertaken here in Shetland to tackle climate change, as well as helping local households and businesses identify ways that they can make changes which will have a positive impact on both the climate and our natural environment and their own financial sustainability.”