COP24 & Youth Leadership for Climate Action
by Kehkashan Basu
NGOCSD-NY Youth Representative & the Director of Youth Leadership
The COP24 negotiations commenced in Katowice, Poland under the grim shadow of the IPCC 2018 report which spelt out, in no uncertain terms, the fact that we were losing the race to limit global warming to 1.5°C. One would have thought that this would prompt policy makers from all countries to look beyond the short term and utilize this platform to agree on aggressive targets to reduce emissions. However, the talks followed the same pattern of the previous years, dragging on beyond the 2 week schedule and into the wee hours of the following morning before some sort of consensus was reached. Even then, it lacked a sense of urgency and forceful intent which was a real disappointment.
As an 18 year old young person, I strongly believe that my generation is going to bear the consequences of the current state of inaction towards mitigating climate change. I am proud of being a Youth Representative for the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-NY which has been working tirelessly over the years to be the voice of change and bring together all stakeholders in demanding faster, time bound action to reduce emissions and take a holistic long term approach towards countering global warming. My generation is the last one that has the opportunity of taking actions to mitigate climate change before it is too late. While policy makers were behind closed doors at the COP24 venue, youth activists from across the world marched and raised their voices in unison outside the venue, demanding urgent action to reduce emissions, remove fossil fuel subsidies and adopt clean energy sources. The writing was on the wall, yet global leaders chose not to see nor act on it. Countries failed to agree on the rules for voluntary market mechanisms, pushing part of the process onto next year’s COP25 in Chile. The outcomes should not have come as a surprise to us given the fact that this year’s COP was held in a city surrounded by coal mines and where the air was laden with coal dust.
I am really concerned at the speed or rather the lack of it with which the climate talks have been progressing. The 2015 Paris accord gave us, the youth, a lot hope. Very little has actually changed at a ground level since then. Apart from adding several million tons of carbon dioxide into the air that we breathe, developed nations have done precious little to contain global warming. The major economies continue to pump billions of dollars of subsidies into fossil fuel production, building pipelines across forests and indigenous lands, decimating fragile ecosystems and pushing thousands of species towards extinction. This road of self-destruction needs to have some barriers and it is upon us, the youth, to take on the mantle. The first step is elect leaders who share our vision, while joining hands and demanding at every forum and platform to move towards clean energy. It is not an easy road but as George Bernard Shaw once said, “People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them.”
“Turn Your Passions into Actions for Change”
http://www.ngocsd-ny.org