A climate for change

• Read what the Copenhagen 4 have been up to on the Tagd blog.

Children worldwide are already experiencing the impacts of climate change, most notably in developing countries. Increased droughts, flooding and natural disasters are denying children their rights to health, education and protection; even to survival itself.

It is estimated that every year in the next decade 175 million children¹ will be affected by sudden climate-related disasters. If climate change goes unchecked it could cause between an additional 60,000 and 250,000 child deaths in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa alone². Yet children in less-developed countries are least responsible for the carbon emissions that cause global temperature rises.

Climate change is an issue that affects children and, as outlined in Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, children have “a right to say what they think in all matters affecting them, and to have their views taken seriously”.

In December 2009, UNICEF and the City of Copenhagen hosted the Children’s Climate Forum (CCF). Held the week before the UN Climate Summit, the forum was the latest in a long tradition of international events, such as the Junior 8 Summits and the UN Special Session, through which UNICEF works to fulfil children’s right to be heard.

The Copenhagen 4

The CCF was attended by 164 children aged 13 to 17 from 44 countries, including a  delegation of four young people from the UK who were selected through a nationwide competition in July 2009. The Copenhagen 4, as the UK group named themselves, are: Graeme McGee, aged 14 from Glasgow; Cressie Mawdesley-Thomas, aged 15 from Gloucestershire; Luke Hughes, aged 17 from Newcastle; and Katie Haywood, aged 17 from Worcestershire.

In the months leading up to Copenhagen, the four worked to prepare as a team and to raise awareness among their peers. “Climate change is a serious issue that we have to act upon now and, as a generation, we must work together to prevent this problem in the future too,” explained Graeme McGee.

Their activities were as diverse as they were impactful and included running talks in schools, petitioning Gordon Brown to attend COP 15 (the Copenhagen Climate Forum), holding youth workshops, and meeting David Kidney MP, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. The team used the UNICEF UK Tagd website to blog about their activities, highlighting blogging as a key medium through which to encourage young people to mobilise around climate change.

Throughout the week of the Forum (30 November to 5 November) the young delegates received training and briefings from climate change experts and held in-depth discussions on adaptation and mitigation. They also worked together to produce a declaration expressing their views on climate change.

“I feel so enormously privileged to have been part of something so fantastic that has given the world’s children an opportunity to voice their concerns about an issue that all too often jeopardises our basic rights,” UK delegate Cressie Mawdesley-Thomas said.

As Cressie highlights, one of the most moving outcomes of the Children’s Climate Forum  was the chance to hear young delegates from countries such as Zambia, Kenya, the Maldives and Greenland speak out about how climate change is already affecting their lives and threatening child rights in their home countries.

“In my country, we have been affected by drought and famine so there is a shortage of food,” said Laurine Millicent Oyodah, 15, from Kenya. “With the shortage of food in my area the food becomes very expensive and sometimes I fail to go to school because the money that is at home can only be used to buy food - so it’s either use the money to buy food or use the money for school.”

Tarikul Islam, 16 from Bangladesh was similarly outspoken, telling the Forum: “On 25 May 2009, the cyclone Aila hit the coastal area of Bangladesh. My island was washed away by the cyclone. My family had to go to another place for shelter and protection. Our assets were damaged totally. It is very painful.”

Tarikul and Laurine‘s stories created a sense of urgency amongst the 164 delegates and the momentum to go away and start campaigning in their home countries. “World leaders will be making decisions about my generation’s future – our voices will hopefully remind them of the urgency of the situation we are facing,” said UK delegate Katie Haywood.

Our World, Our Future

The delegates of the CCF finished their week by presenting their declaration to Connie Hedegaard, the EU Commissioner for Climate Change and President of the COP 15 negotiations. It stated their collective view that:

“We, the youth delegates from 44 countries attending the Children’s Climate Forum 2009 will not sit back and watch. We already face the effects of climate change. Our communities are deprived of clean drinking water, denied access to education and vulnerable to disease every time it floods. Our plates are empty due to drought. Our future is at risk, and we demand that something be done.

“The youth in the world are ready to take action, and we request the same of governments worldwide.”

A selection of the CCF delegates presented the declaration to their counterparts at the UN Climate Summit/COP 15 the following week. They had the opportunity to speak directly to the delegates to highlight the important voice of the global youth and to urge decision-makers to take action to prevent intergenerational injustice on climate change.

Although the ‘Copenhagen Accord’ which emerged from the UN Climate Summit was far from ideal, there has been no loss of momentum among the delegates from the Children’s Climate Forum.

“The ‘Copenhagen Accord’, is disappointing in so many ways – it does very little compared to what we wanted the conclusion of COP15 to do,” CCF delegate Luke commented. ”However, although it doesn’t live up to the expectations nor the needs of vulnerable children around the world, it DOES mean that $100 billion of climate-related aid will flow to developing countries by 2020. Without such an accord, there would have been yet another delay to getting this aid to the people who are being hit hardest by climate change.”

“Nonetheless, the weakness of the deal in terms of combating the root causes of climate change means that [all those concerned about climate change] will need to redouble our efforts to get our governments to act on global emissions in 2010.“

From here to Mexico

Each member of the Copenhagen 4 is now putting together an individual local action plan for 2010. Cressie will be raising awareness through her ‘Don’t Bake the Planet Campaign’. Luke will work with Newcastle University on a project to measure the carbon footprint of the whole city. He has also attended a recent Copenhagen follow-up event hosted by Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband and Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Katie will be giving presentations on the CCF declaration at an event at Worcester University and a National Trust celebration event. Graeme is currently working alongside the Scottish Youth Parliament to campaign for recycling in certain areas of Glasgow, showing how local action can make a global difference when it comes to climate change.

The young people of the world are determined to take collective action on climate change. Let’s hope that the governments of the world follow their lead in at Cop 16 in Mexico in 2010 by delivering a ‘fair, ambitious and binding’, truly global climate deal that safeguards the rights of children worldwide now, and in the future.

As Graeme Mcghee of the Copenhagen 4 says, “It is vital that young people have a global voice as we all have the right to live, be safe, be healthy and be heard. We may be the leaders of tomorrow but governments should not forget we are the passionate citizens of today.”

• Read more on the work of the Copenhagen 4
• Find out more about the UNICEF Children’s Climate Forum and what young people are doing to take action

The author

Jazmin Burgess works at UNICEF UK and accompanied the Copenhagen 4 to the Children’s Climate Forum in December 2009.

References

¹ Save the Children, ‘In the Face of Disaster: Children and climate change’, International Save the Children Alliance, London, 2008.

²Stern et al., The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2007.

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