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Published on Friday, August 21, 2009 by Reuters
Less Talk, More Action on Climate Change, Young People Urge World Leaders
DAEJEON,Republic of Korea - Young people from around the globe today called on world leaders to take radical measures against climate change.
At the largest-ever truly global youth gathering on climate change, some 700 young people, ranging from 10 to 24 years of age, honed in on their governments' track record in addressing climate change, emphasizing the need for strong vision and leadership.
In a statement, the young delegates - representing three billion of the world's population - expressed their "concern and frustration that their governments are not doing enough to combat climate change", adding that "we now need more actions and less talking". The declaration was finalized and adopted by the young participants at the Tunza Children and Youth Conference in Daejeon (Republic of Korea), as part of the global UN-wide 'Seal the Deal!' campaign spearheaded by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to galvanize political will and public support for a comprehensive global climate agreement. "It is very important to include the voice of children and youth in every environmental decision. It is our request to all politicians that they please take this statement into consideration in Copenhagen," said 13-year-old Yugratna Srivastava from India.
The children and youth also addressed the citizens of the planet and urged them to push their governments to create a global green economy. Other recommendations included a call to pressure businesses, producers and governments to promote environmentally friendly products and eco-labeling policies.
"We are the generation of tomorrow. The decisions that are made today will define our future and the world we have to live in. So we young people of the world urge governments to commit to a strong post-Kyoto climate regime. It is our lives we are talking about," said youth delegate, 23-year-old Anne Walraven from the Netherlands.
The statement is the culmination of eight-week-long discussions between young people across the planet using the power of the worldwide web. It was finalized at a Global Town Hall on 20 August in Daejeon, where the 600 participants were joined by over 200 young people in 15 cities around the world including Cuernavaca (Mexico), Nairobi (Kenya), Canberra (Australia), Bangkok (Thailand), Vancouver (Canada) and Athens (Greece), among others.
The Climate Change Statement, entitled 'Listen to Our Voices: The Future Needs Strong Vision and Leadership', comes just four months before the critical climate talks that will take place in Copenhagen in December this year, and just four weeks ahead of the High-Level Summit on Climate Change convened by the UN Secretary-General at the end of September in New York City.
"This global Youth and Children gathering under the Seal the Deal! Campaign is the largest international gathering of young people this year advocating for climate change action. Their voices will and must be heard because they will inherit the outcomes of our actions," said United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
The children and youth are asking governments around the world to:
At the largest-ever truly global youth gathering on climate change, some 700 young people, ranging from 10 to 24 years of age, honed in on their governments' track record in addressing climate change, emphasizing the need for strong vision and leadership.
In a statement, the young delegates - representing three billion of the world's population - expressed their "concern and frustration that their governments are not doing enough to combat climate change", adding that "we now need more actions and less talking". The declaration was finalized and adopted by the young participants at the Tunza Children and Youth Conference in Daejeon (Republic of Korea), as part of the global UN-wide 'Seal the Deal!' campaign spearheaded by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to galvanize political will and public support for a comprehensive global climate agreement. "It is very important to include the voice of children and youth in every environmental decision. It is our request to all politicians that they please take this statement into consideration in Copenhagen," said 13-year-old Yugratna Srivastava from India.
The children and youth also addressed the citizens of the planet and urged them to push their governments to create a global green economy. Other recommendations included a call to pressure businesses, producers and governments to promote environmentally friendly products and eco-labeling policies.
"We are the generation of tomorrow. The decisions that are made today will define our future and the world we have to live in. So we young people of the world urge governments to commit to a strong post-Kyoto climate regime. It is our lives we are talking about," said youth delegate, 23-year-old Anne Walraven from the Netherlands.
The statement is the culmination of eight-week-long discussions between young people across the planet using the power of the worldwide web. It was finalized at a Global Town Hall on 20 August in Daejeon, where the 600 participants were joined by over 200 young people in 15 cities around the world including Cuernavaca (Mexico), Nairobi (Kenya), Canberra (Australia), Bangkok (Thailand), Vancouver (Canada) and Athens (Greece), among others.
The Climate Change Statement, entitled 'Listen to Our Voices: The Future Needs Strong Vision and Leadership', comes just four months before the critical climate talks that will take place in Copenhagen in December this year, and just four weeks ahead of the High-Level Summit on Climate Change convened by the UN Secretary-General at the end of September in New York City.
"This global Youth and Children gathering under the Seal the Deal! Campaign is the largest international gathering of young people this year advocating for climate change action. Their voices will and must be heard because they will inherit the outcomes of our actions," said United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
The children and youth are asking governments around the world to:
- Agree on a more fair, just and action oriented post-Kyoto agreement adopted and implemented by all countries;
- Have strict laws and enforcement against those who pollute and degrade the environment, coupled with education and incentives to protect the environment
- Develop and implement clearly defined carbon action plans and climate response strategies, which can be monitored and reviewed by an independent multi-national climate facility
- Transition toward a green economy based on renewable energies and offer more incentives for people to buy affordable energy efficient products
- Reduce the number of vehicles and traffic density on our roads, including improved and affordable public and pedestrian transport systems
- Make engaging environmental education mandatory in schools and universities and promote community environmental awareness - an informed public is a powerful public
- Pay attention to the conflicts that have developed throughout the world and the negative impact it has had on the environment and develop conflict resolution strategies
- Make it mandatory to include carbon and ecological footprint information in products
- Implement green energy and industry, including sustainable food production
- Support youth efforts to make a change in the world
"In many ways this process of coming to an agreement on this final text mirrors what will take place in December in Copenhagen. This statement is the fruit of a diversity of views and voices from young people of different ages and cultures. We very much hope the spirit set by these young people will be reflected in the negotiations that will take place in December," said Achim Steiner, Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme.
the world's leaders, from US President Barack Obama to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, will over the coming days receive a personal letter from representatives of the globe's three billion young people urging them to Seal a meaningful Deal on climate change in just over 100 days time. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev were on the delegates' mailing list, along with leaders in countries like Zimbabwe, Colombia, Venezuela, Lebanon, Haiti, Pakistan, Georgia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Mongolia, Japan and Germany.
© 2009 Reuters/Alertnet
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8 Comments so far
Show AllUnless the nations of the world adopt a 80 percent reduction in man-made CO2 and methane emissions and a 100% reduction of CFCs, HCFCs, HFCs, and methyl bromide by the early 2020's the livable biosphere and civilization is doomed. This is not to mention pesticides, hormone disrupters, strip mining, development, clearcutting forests, over fishing, legal and illegal dumping of toxics, etc, etc.
I feel sorry for these children who believe that an 80% reduction in man-made greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 is going to save anything including themselves.
What we need is millions of these young people committing acts of civil disobedience especially in the industrialized nations making sure that governements and corporations can no longer get away with commiting this biological holocaust upon all living things including us bipeds.
It is both easy and hard to mentally grasp that our governments, corporations, and civilization are well on it's way to destroying every living thing on this planet. Can anyone imagine any worse disaster?
I'm older, and I don't see significant action either. I see a rush to put up new coal plants worldwide, to invest upfront in a lifestyle of certain global warming.
I worry about the children and the youth because I don't know if we have reached the point of no return yet. I find myself wanting to say I am sorry for the condition of the planet that is going to be left to you. I want to say I am sorry we failed you!
Perhaps those of us that are in the generations before these youth can help?
We are the generation that largely have profited from the largess of life style that has allowed environmental conditions to get to rapid weather changes that will effect the next generation.
Can we not help our youth and children with our knowledge and experience? We know that the largest contribution to environmental degradation are corporations that create the processes of turning raw materials into the products, packaging and delivery of product with only the profit motive as the driving force.
We have allowed the corporations to profit without ethical or moral conscience. It is time for society, we the people, to pull the charters that allow corporations to exist on paper until they restructure to make profit subservient to the well being of the earth and it's inhabitants.
Vote to remove the attribute of person from them. Make the state that charters them legally responsible for failure to protect the commons of all earth inhabitants and allow the inhabitants to sue both the state and corporation that damages the people or the commons.
I would say vote with every dollar if you have any but also use every tool in the earth citizens tool box including acts of civil resistance and civil disobedience
I have been arrested 3 times and risked arrest dozens of times over the last 20 years even to this year but....
I would be willing to risk arrest and be arested many more times if I had the pro bono legal representation because I couldn't afford to pay thousands of dollars for each arrest and more stringent charges.
Where are the lawyers to make this possible?
Where are the progressive who can't get arrested to fund such endeavors?
27 young people where arrested on July 8, 2009 at the Elliott Forest Free State in Oregon to defend ancient forests and our climate and they will likely struggle for months or even years to pay off their fines.
No flurry of money or lawyers has rushed to their aid yet except one over worked lawyer with Civil Liberties Defense Center.
for details or to help:
www.forestdefensenow.org
www.cldc.org
We the so called progressives need to demonstrate to the youth like those 27 arrested that we have their back when they get arrested and prosecuted by the corporate run state.
Otherwise after the first arrest for civil disobedience they will likely not be able or willing to do it again.
Some of us have been our own lawyers, with legally disastrous results but in my case I didn't mind.
In my case, after a group of us went through police torture I was lost for 10 days without charge in police custody. Being my own lawyer I wrote a "Writ of Habeus Corpus" for the judge. That means, "show me the body". Maybe the judge wanted to ogle my body, but it also implies that by law I can't be held without a charge. So I answered when a guard tentatively called out my name, was taken down to a courtroom, charged with trespassing and then the judge slyly asked, "do you have anything to say?"
In legal speak, that meant I was supposed to say, "Motion to dismiss!" in which case the judge would toss the case out because at minimum, the police hadn't been prompt in charging me with anything. Now, how many of you would know to say the magic words, "Motion to dismiss"? So I said something else. I said that the approval process for that nuclear plant was a miscarriage of justice. The judge said he didn't want to hear any more about that, and so I said, in that case I have nothing more to say. So the judge sent me back to police confinement, without a real charge against me.
If a particular judge or DA wishes to be plain unamerican and wants to compound his/her unlawful behavior on another unlawful behavior while directly in the glare of the public eye, that's his/her problem.
I continued to offer myself up for arrest after that, until I simply knew after one fairly gentle arrest, that I specifically was not to try to get arrested anymore. This may not make a lick of sense to a number of civil disobedience people but that's where I'm at personally. Maybe I can explain it someday.
George C. Brown - Yes indeed! Keep the pressure on to do something really meaningful!
The 'powers that be' et al don't mind one bit that so much time is wasted discussing things. It works to their advantage. It is time for the average people to take over and send politicians packing, especially the corrupt ones.