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?”