Young “accelerators” of climate action

On November 8, I had the opportunity to moderate an event entitled “Young accelerators of climate action”, being organised in parallel to the ongoing climate change negotiations (COP23).

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This space brought together young people from the Dominican Republic, Nepal, France, Austria, Uganda and Colombia to show what these leaders are doing in their country in the framework of the action for climate empowerment (ACE), contemplated in Article 12 of the Paris Agreement.

This article is very important because it will be the first step to promote adaptation and mitigation to climate change from non-governmental actors such as civil society and NGOs. This is because it deals with the way in which education and access to information will be promoted in the fight against this phenomenon.

During the session, young people like Eddy Vásquez from the Dominican Republic expressed the importance of empowering citizens and forgetting the old custom of leaving all actions in the hands of the government. He does this through his organization “Sustainable Youth”, where through different projects, he has educated more than 3000 teachers or brought to the same inclusion of climate change in the curricula of several schools.

In addition, the representatives of Nepal and Austria said that it is crucial to be able to empower non-governmental actors in using creativity and innovation, since traditional education and training becomes obsolete when we need the will and commitment from everyone to be able to adapt to climate change.
The above is carried out by Joséphine Raynauld, who in France works with Climates organizing “COP In My City”, a project that is carried out worldwide and empowers students of schools to be active actors in the fight against climate change.

Finally, from the great experience of these young people it was concluded that in the negotiations on how to implement the Paris Agreement, the political incidence of young delegates is crucial for ACE to be taken into account and build the capacity of the different communities. This way, starting as citizens and in our different fronts of action, we can promote a true climate responsibility that allows us to overcome the challenges that come more frequently every day.