Monmouth’s first Climate Future Festival, brought many corners of the town together to take a look at what Monmouth can do in response to the climate emergency.

The festival that ’doesn’t cost the earth’ was organised by Action on the Climate Emergency (ACE) Monmouth.The festival addressing the climate emergency consisted of 99 events over seven days including, debates, presentations from inspirational speakers, thought provoking films and discussions, children’s activities, ways of protecting the natural environment on which we all depend, ways of working with and communicating with nature, ways in which we can ensure a sustainable food supply, repairing, recycling and upcycling, ways of attending to our well-being.It was a coming together of the community concerned tackling the climate crisis and protecting the planet for future generations, reducing and repairing the environmental damage that we are causing, and at the same time having fun.It brought hope to many who attended and great ideas of what we can all do in our daily lives to lower the carbon footprint of our community.Over the week there were political debates in The Savoy, nature walks, education talks, compost making workshops, free shows at the Blake Theatre, go-carts for the children, crafts, t-shirt printing, up-cycling clothes, market stalls, a wellbeing zone in the Nelson Garden, and Charles Rolls and Henry V came to life for the weekend and walked around talking to the crowds, asking them what they know about climate change. There was even a town-wide litter pick organised by Monmouth Litter Group, a town council subcommittee, which involved every residental street in Monmouth being cleaned up.The festival focused around six core environmental themes. Each activity or event highlighted an aspect of at least one of these themes. The themes were, energy, environment, food, waste, transport and buying.The festival was made possible thanks to a number of organisations who participated in and supported it, to those that helped fund it, and to the hardworking volunteers who made it happen.Blake Theatre, Sustainable Development Fund, The National Lottery Community Fund, Viridor and Prosiect Gwyrdd Community Fund, Tesco Community Grants, and Monmouth Town Council all contributed funding.In response to Monmouth Town Council declaring a Climate Emergency, ACE Monmouth was set up in May 2019 with support from the town council. It attracted a large and enthusiastic group of local residents to take action on the climate emergency.