They’re back: Today’s Fridays for Future strike — the first in 18 months — will see youth activists taking to the streets again to push progress on solutions to climate change.
Here’s what you can do to raise awareness and seek solutions where you are.
COY11 closes with new ideas, hope, commitment to stopping climate change
By Bethany Ao, GSS correspondent
PARIS — The Conference of Youth ended Saturday with new ideas, hope, and renewed commitment to taking action against climate change.
An estimated 5,000 participants from around the world — a global outpouring that included students from Columbia, Egypt, Japan, the Seychelles, Sierra Leone and the United States — attended COY11, a three-day youth summit that began on Nov. 26 at the Parc des Expositions in Villepinte, north of Paris.
COY organizers in Paris made the global gathering a local one by setting up COYs in cities such as Montreal and Tokyo with live broadcasts and interactive games.
The climate change debate will continue Monday with the opening day of COP21, the Conference of Parties for world governments.
An estimated 150 heads of state, including President Barack Obama, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Chinese President Xi Jinping, have announced plans to attend COP21 in spite of terror attacks in Paris a little more than two weeks ago. In all, an estimated 40,000 participants from 195 countries are expected to participate at events at the Le Bourget conference site north of Paris.
Already, more than 180 countries covering almost 95 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions have announced national climate action plans to reduce carbon emissions, according to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
COY participants who came from all corners of the Earth are leaving with new ideas about how to preserve it.
“It’s funny — it’s my gap year right now and the reason why I’m taking one is so I can learn more,” said Adam Handoko, 19, of Indonesia. “Being with people from different cultures, different walks of life, different countries here has expanded my worldview.
“What I’ve plucked from this experience is mostly education,” he added.” I learned things here I could not learn in a classroom. I’ve also loved meeting people who have done great things and finding new heroes here.”
Over three days, students participated in more than a hundred planned events, from speeches and rap performances to seminars and workshops, including how to build solar-panel powered lights using recyclable plastic liter bottles. Many more informal and impromptu meetings took place in areas set aside for conversation and relaxation.
Students also formed working groups in 12 areas, from education and energy to food production and wildlife conservation, prepared draft manifestos, which also are expected to be released soon.
In a speech to COY participants during closing ceremonies Saturday night, Laurent Fabius, COP21 president and France’s foreign minister, praised youth for their hard work and creativity.
“I’m very impressed by what young people have managed to put together for these countries. You have received some help from some partners, but the bulk of this is due to your own creativity, energy and resourcefulness,” Fabius said. ”These are great assets as young people. Fortuitously, these are renewable resources.”
“Of course, not all of you see the future in exactly the same way,” Fabius added. “Some see it with hope, others with a lot of anxiety. No matter where you all come from, there is a shared sense that you will not watch important decisions being made without you. That you will not satisfy yourselves with only being the leaders of tomorrow, but rather take leadership right now.”
Celine Cardineal of France participated in the COY10 conference that took place in Lima, Peru last December, and wanted to attend a COY again.
“It’s really important to not only to meet the young people, who are interested in climate change, but to know we are the same community,” she said.
“I thought COY was an amazing way that youth from around the world were brought together to meet each other,” said American student Scott Brown, “to share ideas and inspire one another in the long and grueling fight for climate justice.”
—Bethany Ao is GSS News Editor for Europe and a junior at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. See more of her on-the-ground reports from COY11 on Twitter @GSSVoices, #GSS_COY11 and on Facebook. Follow Ao @BethanyAo and email her atbethanyao2017@u.northwestern.edu.
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