Doha climate conference diary: youth activists bring energy and urgency

When the US university student Anjali Appadurai lambasted diplomats from 194 countries for their lack of action and ambition at last year's climate talks in Durban, she shocked the UN and galvanised the meeting. She told them:

"I speak for half the world. We are the silent majority. You've given us a seat in this hall, but our interests are not on the table. What does it take to get a stake in this game? Lobbyists? Corporate influence? Money? You've been negotiating all my life. In that time, you've failed to meet pledges, you've missed targets, and you've broken promises, but you've heard this all before."

Young People To World Leaders at COP18: Your Climate Legacy Shapes The World We Inherit.

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?”

Chart: Among youth, unemployment is not always the issue

From the World Development Report 2013

621 million young people are “idle”—not in school or training, not employed, and not looking for work. Rates of idleness vary across countries, ranging between 10 and 50 percent among 15- to 24-year-olds.

Source: http://blogs.worldbank.org  

Counting Costs of Climate Change. By Stanley Ijeoma

CLIMATE change has finally come home; yes our lives have been invaded by floods of fury and other freak weather events that we currently grapple with.  From Lokoja to Onitsha, down to Yenogoa and moving north of the Niger to Makurdi, Adamawa and Taraba; it has been tales of woe, sorrow, anger and disappointment.  Confusion and utter bewilderment were clearly written on the faces of the governors of these states–I do not know of any state governor or minister in Nigeria today, including the Federal Capital Territory, that has appointed a cabinet level Adviser or Special Assistant on Climate Change –strictly climate change, specifically! Climate change deserves to be unbundled from the environment portfolio –at least at advisory levels -because of its cross cutting nature that requires specialized multi-sectoral knowledge.

For Nigerian Women (and Girls), It Will Take More Than YouWin. By ZAINAB SANDAH

Except for when the camera generally sweeps through the Federal Executive Council seating, you hardly see or hear from Hajiya Zainab Maina, the Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development. That is, until she was recently reported by Daily Trust as saying that ‘the YouWin program is aimed at facilitating women’s transition from informal to formal sector of economic development’. (Thank God it’s that simple!) But perhaps not so, and Honourable Minister underestimates the daily challenges being faced by women and girls across the country and needs reminding why empowering 6,000 (or 1,200?) out of 80 million women, 54 million of whom are rural and mired in backbreaking and unskilled labour should not presuppose an automatic facilitation of transition to formal sector of economic development.

BMC task FG on entrepreneurship mentorship for youths

Business Management Conference (BMC), a non-governmental organisation, has called on the Federal Government to create centres across the country where youths could be properly mentored on how to be successful entrepreneurs. This, according to the group, would help bridge the unemployment gap.

The call was made in Lagos at a seminar organised by the organisation, themed, ‘Emergence of Giant Entrepreneurs.’

How Can Africa’s Resources Profit Its People? By Katherine Lay

Tune in to the BBC’s Africa Debate and Make your Voice Heard.

Whether Africa will ever harness the full potential of its natural resources to combat poverty is a question that is more relevant now than ever, as new discoveries of coal, oil and gas look set to transform global energy markets and – we hope – the economies of resource-rich African countries. It’s a question the BBC will pose to global experts in the AfricaDebate in Addis Ababa at 19:00 GMT/UTC on 26th October. ONE will be participating in the debate and citizens across the continent will be airing their views.  We’d like to hear yours.