Climate Action Newcastle hosted it’s second ‘Smart Energy Expo’ over the 29th-30th Nov weekend, at the landmark heritage ‘Boilershop’ building in the heart of Newcastle. This year the event ran for two days, attracted 7,000 people and we had 35 stallholders showcasing renewable energy and related technologies for the home and office, as well as stalls from community groups (including Rising Tide, ourselves, Lake Macquarie Climate Action, Trees in Newcastle, Newcastle Bike Ecology Centre), CSIRO, state and local government.

A highlight of the event was the keynote address by Philip Sutton, co-author of Climate Code Red, who held a large crowd for far longer than the average Sunday morning attention span, and had a queue of people afterwards wanting to talk to him and buy all the copies of Climate Code Red that he’d brought! A big thanks to Philip for being our guest speaker this year.

A small group of CAN members had been organising the expo since early this year, and their hard work paid off with a crowd of about 7,000 people (including families – it was fantastic to see the number of families! As well as young urban professionals and baby boomers with a genuine interest to learn about and to invest in solar hot water, solar panels, micro wind turbines, water tanks, insulation, LED lighting and more).

We had help this year through community grants and sponsorships (nothing at all to do with coal, just to reassure you) which funded television and newspaper advertising, as well as printing. It was a hectic week and weekend, but well worth it as it really put smart energy technologies in the minds and hands of so many ‘ordinary’ Novocastrians. The climate emergency message was also at the forefront of the weekend – our team of volunteers at the CAN stalls and on the microphone made sure of that.