In June, with representatives from Montreal to Guadalajara in attendance, the city of San Antonio, Texas officially opened its new North American Friendship Garden. A thriving green space to celebrate cross-border sustainability efforts, it includes, among other features, a large “bug hotel” to support pollinating insects. The structure, beautifully designed by a local artist, quickly became one of the most buzzed-about elements of the new space.

So did the cohort that created it: a group of teenagers working with the mayor’s office.

The teens were members of San Antonio’s Youth Engagement Council for Climate Initiatives, a mechanism for incorporating young voices into municipal climate action strategies. Established last year to help execute the city’s Climate Action and Adaptation Plan, the youth council has already made significant impacts that are visible across the city.

The bug hotel is just one example. Initiated by the youth council’s biodiversity subgroup, the squat, cylindrical, terracotta-esque structure is packed with non-toxic, organic materials that the youth council members helped collect from their backyards. Bees, butterflies and other pollinators can enter through a series of large, diamond-shaped holes in the structure’s sides and enjoy dark, cool areas to rest or nurture their young. The same group made related policy recommendations to the city council that San Antonio’s green spaces include pollinator habitat protection.

Another cohort of the youth council worked with the city’s transit agency on a pilot program to add rooftop gardens to bus shelters. ​​The low-maintenance rooftop gardens, designed in collaboration with graduate students at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Architecture, increase habitat for local pollinators and help cool the city by mitigating the urban heat island effect. Laura Fuller, communications and design manager at EcoRise, an Austin-based nonprofit that has supported the creation of youth climate councils that advise the mayors of San Antonio, Austin and Houston, says the city is now discussing replicating the pilot, creating more green bus stops across the city “thanks to the ideas and action of a handful of local high school students.”

Read the full article about youth councils for climate change by Marianne Dhenin at The 74.