The COY15 has just started

“We are action”.

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This is the slogan of the Conference of Youth, that will take place in Madrid from 29 of November to the 1st of December of 2019, is to promote the exchange of experiences, knowledge and best practices about climate change, between young people. The participants come from all over the world, an example of that is Jean-Betrand Mhandu, that came from Zimbabwe to represent the organization “African Youth Initiative on Climate Change“.

The opening ceremony took place in the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and was moderated by two youngsters dedicated to climate action. It was brought to the attention the fact that the social crisis in Chile (the reason why the COP Chile was changed to Madrid) is the same expression of the climate crisis, and that both reflect the way we live on this earth; it is crucial we change our concept of success and that we bring the discussion and solutions of climate change to every citizen of the world.

It was also mentioned the role of the 28 local conferences that built the way to the COY15, in countries all over the world as Argentina, Germany, Pakistan, Austria, Paraguay, Italy, just to name a few.

Another topic that was approached was the Paris Agreement, and how the COP25 will help preparing the remaining details. Amongst all the speakers there were words of hope and call for action. The first day of COY could not have been better picked since it was a “Fridays for Future“, a movement that came to life in the last edition of this conference (COY14) and that impacted the world tremendously.

In the afternoon, the team from Viração&Jangada (10 Italian high school students) performed a theater play about migrations and climate refugees, that made everyone that was present think and reflect about these pertinent issues.