NMH Students Join Climate Summit

By Charlotte Relyea-Strawn ’26 and Siddiqi Komou ’27 

Mass Audubon’s Young Climate Leadership Program, previously referred to as Youth Climate Action Now, hosts a summit every year in Springfield for youth all across Western Massachusetts to engage youth and discuss issues related to climate change. The YCLP summit is an event that NMH students have been going to for the past four years. 

This year, the theme of the summit was “Resilience as Resistance.” Ecoleader Siddiqi Komou ’27 attended the summit and shared a report.

— CR-S 

The NMH group arrived at Springfield at 9:00 am, and upon entry we had received a tag that contained our schedule for the day. This included the seminars that we had chosen to attend a few days prior. We started with a general meeting touching on what the YCLP summit was: long- and short-term goals, schools/communities affiliated, and what had happened during previous summits. From someone who had never attended anything like that before, I found it helpful and comforting. 

We were then separated into our chosen seminars. I had chosen a seminar that focused on how to be impactful in a community despite not having connections that would be helpful for networking. We addressed questions such as, How can a student alone push for grand-scheme sustainability solutions implemented by the whole school?, or How can I motivate my town/city to be diligent about responsible electricity use? In particular, they demonstrated examples of a few use cases. 

For instance, one use case was that of a student who was concerned about the electricity use of their school. Students would not use their electricity in a cautious manner; they left appliances on such as lights, heaters, and air conditioners, even in situations where it was not always necessary. This was made worse by the fact that the school got all of its energy from a local electricity company which was not taking full advantage of renewable energy and also had an expensive electricity bill. Due to all of these circumstances, the student decided to take action. Doing some research, they were able to find out about the PPA (Power Purchasing Agreement), a contract where a third-party solar energy company installs solar panels in a school for free, on the condition that the school keeps the panels for 25 years. The model greatly benefited their school: Their bill was cut significantly, they had free maintenance, and were 100%sustainable. 

After the seminars, we had lunch and met as a big group before departing. During this time, we saw additional projects that were created through the YCLP program. Similar to the specific examples mentioned in my own seminar, these were people who had identified an issue, and despite not having access to a straight straightforward path were able to create effective solutions. Overall, I enjoyed the YCLP summit, as it gave me the motivation to be more direct towards addressing adversity.

— SK