The Youth Press Agency is covering the UN Conference on Climate Change, taking place in Warsaw, Poland.

40 young people from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Italy are ready with their luggage for flying off to Warsaw, Poland, where the 19th Conference on Climate Change (COP 19) is going to take place, from 11th to 22nd November.

By Paulo Lima

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Through the production and divulgation of articles, photos, videos and audios, these young journalists are participating to the collaborative coverage realized with the Youth Press Agency and the Red+VOS, a project promoted by the NGO Viração Educomunicação in association with Fundación TierraVida and the Red+VOS.

The participants are also leveraging the messages and proposals from young people to their respective representatives and negotiators inside the Conference, so that these be taken into consideration. The proposals concern matters such as deforestation, energy resources , impacts of mega events (the Brazilian case) and vulnerability of traditional communities and indigenous people. The members of the Youth Press Agency are also aiming at having some influence inside the YOUNGO, the official group of youngsters inside the UN Conference on Climate Change, that traditionally doesn’t have a strong representation from Latin America and African Countries.

“YOUNGO is the best way for expressing the proposals of young people inside the negotiations. However, since young people from developed countries organize themselves as blocks, it always turn out that youths in general spend the whole Conference defending such topics as coal and nuclear energy , which are quite distant from the Latin-American reality”, explains Evelyn Araripe, a edocommunicator from Viração Educomunicação, as well as an active participant of the Brazilian delegation in the Youth Press Agency.

The Agency got first under way two summers ago in Rio de Janeiro, when, as the biggest Press Agency, it covered the Rio+20 Summit by means of the participation of over 120 young reporters coming from Latin America, Europe and the United States. Last year in Doha, Qatar at the COP18 it also had its delegation of reporters during the Climate Change negotiations. “The Agency is one of the major initiatives since the creation of the Red+VOS.
Thanks to the eyes of young people from all over the region, we are trying to translate and transmit in a simple way to all citizens complex topics such as the sustainable development and the climate change. Understanding what’s happening in those places is of uttermost importance in order to influence not only inside those same spaces but also outside the Conference” added Alfredo Redondo, Executive Director of Fundación TierraVida and member of the International Facilitation Group of the Red+VOS.

This year the Conference is going to take place under the heading of negotiations in the areas of financing, emission reductions from the part of both developed and developing countries (i.e. Brazil), and also discussion about carbon credit policies. Besides, the 193 countries participants to the UN system are going to get the negotiations of a new global agreement on the reductions of emissions for avoiding an increase of global temperatures over 2 degrees Celsius within the next decades further.

This new agreement is going to enter into force starting from 2020. For Latin American negotiators will be tough to obtain advances without clarifying the problem of financing for the transition of countries in a Low Carbon economy. Since 2007, countries members of the UN have been discussing a Green Climate Fund where developed countries, historically responsible of the emissions that are nowadays causing climate changes, should put some 60 billions $, so that developing counties be allowed to grow but already in a clean way, with a low-impact on the planet.
Today negotiations are discussing a bigger sum of 100 $, but the reality is that not even a cent has been yet deposited. A part from the official delegations, the COP counts on the participation of representatives of social movements and non governmental organizations- NGOs- that committed to pressing and guaranteeing that every decision, and so the treaties, may take into consideration also people expectations.

The Conference is also hosting many side events, in which reports and investigations are being presented to everyone, but also where discussions of the most various topics involved in climate change, such as agriculture, mobility, sustainable cities among others are having the lead. The Youth Press Agency counts on the support of Engajamundo,
Associazione Jangada, Club Botánico Ambiental, Coletivo Clímax Brasil, GCCA – Adopt a Negotiator, Fundación TierraVida, Fundação Friedrich Ebert, Fundação Luterana de Diaconia, Osservatorio SOStenibile, Plant for the Planet, Provincia Autónoma de Trento, Rede Nacional de Adolescentes e Jovens Comunicadoras e Comunicadores – Renajoc, Universidad de Trento, Vitae Civilis and YOUNGO. Just before the COP begins all young people are meeting inside the COY9, the Conference of Young People preparatory to the COP19 and organized by YOUNGO, from 7th to 10th November. In this meeting the representatives of the Youth Press Agency are going to reencounter other young communicators from all over the world in order to plan together a collaborative and integrated coverage of the events. For following the young coverage of COP19.