On Monday morning, negotiators from around the world poured
into the Qatar National Conference Center for the first day of the COP18 United
Nations Climate Talks, prepared for a long day of speeches on the technical
details of multilateral environmental diplomacy. However, as they travelled down
the moving walkway between security and the plenary hall they were confronted
with the human face of climate change.’
Young people from around the world had flanked the walkway
holding signs in multiple languages that reminded negotiators of the terrifying
consequences that runaway greenhouse gas emissions have already begun imposing
on people and the planet; droughts, hurricanes, wildfires, desertification,
rising seas, biodiversity loss, and more.
At the bottom of each sign the youth posed the question “Will This Be
Your #ClimateLegacy?”
The demonstration was intended to remind negotiators that
the decisions they made at this conference, and over the next several years,
will decide the kind of world today’s young people will grow up in.
The emissions reduction commitments already made, especially
by developed economies like the US and Canada, are woefully insufficient to
prevent an average temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius by mid-century, a
threshold beyond which scientists and economists warn that catastrophic
consequences to public health and the world economy are extremely likely.
At a press conference held in parallel to the COP18 opening
plenary, five young people from different countries sat in front of a map
prepared at the Eighth Annual Conference of Youth last weekend covered in red
dots representing young people’s first hand stories of growing up vulnerable to
a disrupted climate and told their own stories about facing these impacts.
Jane Nurse, a college student from Grenada opened the
session with strong words, “Today we are talking about how climate impacts are
already upon us. We are in a state of planetary emergency and we are not
anymore just talking about abstract things…we need to have higher ambition, we
need to get rid of the stranglehold of the fossil fuel industry, and we really,
really need to make deep cuts to keep our world to the two degree target.”
Ahmed Yaseen, spoke as a representative of youth from The
Maldives, a republic of small islands in The Indian Ocean that is currently
being swallowed by rising seas. He pointed out that the gradual disappearance
of his country was not even the most urgent problem they faced from climate
change, saying “we are a country that imports 90% of our daily requirements of
food and everything else from other countries.
Extreme whether conditions in all parts of the world effect our economy
and our daily lives.”
From Qatar’s neighbor Oman Sarah Al Harthy recalled ““In
2007, when a cyclone hit us, it was so sudden and we never anticipated such a
thing. Even when the alerts came two days before, no one really took it
seriously…It was a real eye opener to many people. I’m asking the Arab world to actually make
the pledge. As part of AYCM [Arab Youth Climate Movement], I’m really hoping
that this will be something all Arab leaders will look at and consider
seriously.”
Pin-han Huang from the island nation of Taiwan discussed the
2009 typhoon that ravaged her home country,
“It’s hard to imagine, people around us were impacted so directly by
climate change. It comes to be a serious question about climate refugees and
who can stand for us…2 degrees: we can live.
4 degree: we will really suffer. We are here to call for the world
please take action now. Time is ticking.”
From Nepal, Rajan Thapa was quick and direct with his plea
to the world’s richest economies pointing out that while his country had done
almost nothing to contribute to climate change his people were already
suffering, The people are fighting for water, the people are fighting food. Our
glaciers are melting. our snow is melting and if the process continues, we
can’t ensure that there will be snow in our mountains.”
Mike Sandmel, originally from New York City in the USA,
pointed to the ways in which extreme weather events like Hurricane Sandy was
finally starting to drive a sense of urgency and a call for action on climate
change in the US. He pointed to Barack
Obama’s re-election speech in which The President declared “We want our
children to live in an America that isn't…threatened by the destructive power
of a warming planet.”
Sandmel also highlighted grassroots efforts to hold Obama
accountable to his rhetoric saying “We need to pressure him constantly and ask
the President whose side he is on. Does
he stand with big oil and their money or with young people in the US and around
the world.”
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Contact: Mike Sandmel, SustainUS/International Youth Climate
Movement, media@sustainus.org
Photos and interviews available on request
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