Credit: Ellen Sandell

“Young people want to see a carbon price,” says 28-year-old Ellen Sandell, the joint winner of the Environment Minister’s Young Environmentalist of the Year Award for 2009. “They want to do something, but they just don’t know how.”

While studying for a bachelor of arts and bachelor of science at the University of Melbourne, Sandell embarked on her first environmental campaign, lobbying the university libraries to opt for recycled toilet and photocopy paper.

She was then elected environmental officer of the Student Union, and played an important role in a campaign that saw the university set a target of becoming carbon neutral by 2030.

Sandell joined the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) just after its launch in early 2007, and soon after attended the U.N. climate talks in Bali to see Kevin Rudd sign the Kyoto U.N. protocol – the first time Australia had sent a youth delegation to international climate talks.

The AYCC has a network of over 50,000 young Australian members and 30 major youth organisations. “Politicians are usually pretty receptive to us because we’re not a traditional environmental group; we’re a new, youth-based group, so we have a different way of looking at things,” says Sandell.

One of the organisation’s most recognisable campaigns to date was dubbed ‘the Climate Elephant’, which involved people in elephant suits following the Liberal and Labor party leaders around. “We had national and international coverage and it got us in a much better position politically. It’s things like that, where you see how a grass roots organisation can develop to find a place on the political stage,” Sandell says.

Sandell took over as director of AYCC in January 2011, and hopes to see their membership continue to grow and secure its place in solving the climate crisis. “Many first-time voters are young, so politicians want to engage and listen to us. It’s a really exciting time and we’ll be taking things in a fresh new direction.”