Young Carlow man honoured at An Taisce climate ambassador awards
Franek Dobronski was presented with Outstanding Achievement award by An Taisce's Cathy Baxter, Director of Education and Community Action
STUDENT Franek Dobronski received an outstanding achievement award at An Taisce’s annual Climate Ambassador Awards recently at Tailors’ Hall, Dublin.
As a member of DCU’s Climate Action Society and the National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI), Franek (20) helped young people to connect, organise and be heard on issues relating to climate change. The past pupil of St Mary’s Academy CBS is studying climate and environmental sustainability at DCU because, he believes, there’s a lot of “potential in having a career in this field”.
Franek was one of ten climate ambassadors awarded at the event, with the others representing organic farmers and horticulturalists, club members, educators, sustainable travellers, active retirees and TY students from across the country. A week before, in the same hall, President Catherine Connolly visited the organisation and Franek was lucky enough to meet her.
He was proud to represent Carlow as an ambassador: “I don't see a lot of people from Carlow in the An Taisce network, so I see this as a chance to advocate for the platform itself. Making young people aware of it is the most important thing,” he said.
The climate ambassador programme has been in operation since 2017 and is supported by the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment; 133 climate ambassadors were trained by An Taisce’s climate action team earlier in the year and together they worked to reach over 216,000 people.
During the programme, Franek organised swap shops in DCU, supported the clubs and societies fair and worked with NYCI on an online consultation for Ireland’s COP30 preparations as well as contributing at the National Rural Youth Assembly. He raised awareness on issues from climate action to sustainable transport and affordable student housing.
Franek said his favourite part of the ambassadorship was moderating and organising the National Youth Assembly on Climate. “Being able to actually work with people in the field and feed that back to politicians was a great opportunity,” he said.
He contributed to the National Mobility Stakeholders Forum 2025, participated in the National Economic Dialogue as a youth delegate and is a member of the Climate Action Programme Youth Advisory Panel. Franek also engaged with MEPs and commissioners on climate and sustainability issues on a European level.
Cathy Baxter, director of education and community action at An Taisce, presented the awards. She said she wanted “to acknowledge how this programme fosters a dynamic network of changemakers, driving awareness, sustainability and behavioural change at a local and often national level”.
