Climate Change Actors of Change Blog
Climate Change

ChangeForClimate*

A technological and environmentally-related project which is aimed to raise awarness about climate change and actions against it for junior and senior actors of change!

About the creator

My name is Salvador Gaspar and I'm 16 years old. I am currently studying at Cristo Salvador school in Santiago de Surco my 1st Diploma Programme year. I come from the great city of Lima, located in Peru. I enjoy sports (especially soccer, table tennis and basketball), trekking, photographing landscapes, reading, watching movies and writing anything aside from essays (but it doesn't mean I don't write them). This year has comed to me as a huge, huge, huge challenge. My school has started its journey in the IB some years ago but has recently added the Diploma Programme, which means an absolutely valuable opportunity of growth for me but also raise with it lots of challenges. I know that the EE, IAs and essays are hard challenges, but I really value them, and I thank a lot my school teachers, directors and other staff for making it possible for me to be part of IB community.

I decided to create this project and intend to achieve its purpose through this hackathon as a consequence of many different and interesting factors that I think important to mention as part of an introduction.

First of all, for many years my teachers and other media have talked about climate change's effects and possible measures against it. Therefore, (as an IB open-minded and critical thinking student) I have always been interested in identifying and analyzing more specific evidences through time to explain how climate change is developing, and probably discovering patterns from it.

Second, I am highly concerned about its impact. It is a real problem. Some people may say that climate has always changes, and it is not false, but as the World Wide Fund for Nature suggests, the 10 warmest years on Earth, since 1880, have occurred since 2014. Recently experts have introduced the term of 'anthropogenic climate change' in contrast with 'natural climate change'. This term refers to climate change provoked by mankind. The main acceleration of climate change started with the Second Industrial Revolution and since then its effects had increased. I'm not against industrial development, but I'm against its social, environmental and economic effects. Mitigation and prevention methods and tools must be applied.

And third, this is no longer a long-term issue. I highlight the importance of this third factor. Nowadays different news are announcing extreme climate events with global effects in lots of countries, many of them related to climate change. For example, DW mentioned: "August was the hottest month ever recorded globally, and ocean temperatures also reached unprecedented levels, the European climate monitor Copernicus reported on Thursday (September 10, 2026)". Additionally, BBC News warns about a "El Niño phenomenon" of collosal proportions soon, probably intensified by climate change. Europe and Peru were specific scenarios of weird phenomeons of heat: in Europe the heatwaves are reaching the highest historical levels and in Peru (and I can say this from my own experience) winter has been really warm in contrast with other years. Climate change is becoming more and more common! It's no longer a long-term issue.

About "ChangeForClimate*"

I curiously got the idea of the name "Change for Climate*" as a wordplay with "Climate Change", in order to be ironic but solid on its message: "We shall change our daily lives for the welfare of our planet and its climate against climate change". It's a crystal clear message, but it is usually hidden or seen as something distant. That's how I also decided to make this project in English despite my native language is Spanish, apart from the fact that many people in the hackathon come from different countries so English is the universal language used.

What is climate change?

According to the United Nations (UN), climate change refers to "long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns, which can be natural, such as through variations in the solar cycle or large volcanic eruptions." However, the UN notes that since the 19th century, human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas.