Last night I dodged into a restaurant on my way back to the hostel following a long day at the negotiations. At a pretty far metro ride from the venue I was expecting to be finished with learning about COP for the day. Little did I know I was just getting started.
A party representative from Comoros took the open chair beside me. Between cigarette puffs he told me about his views on the climate negotiations.
How many years had he been going? “Since before you” was his simple response. Sure enough he had attended the 1992 Rio Earth Summit at the very beginning (2 years before I was born) and every COP since.
His answer was also concise for the largest climate worry for his country. “Sea level rise. We are an island and we will go under.”
Desperate for a glimmer of hope I pressed on asking if he thought young people had any influence or power at the negotiations. No, he said. As long as polluting countries, especially the US and China, are refusing to abate a considerable amount, nobody has much power.
Interestingly while the Comoros representative had little faith in a legally binding commitment in Paris, he had his eyes on Marrakech, Morocco (the location of COP22). His reasoning: even though Obama is intent on making a lasting agreement in Paris, the current US congress is not. After a new US president is elected next year the politics of the US congress will likely shift to being more serious about a climate commitment.
I left dinner with the weathered negotiator feeling pretty discouraged. These feelings of great hope and great sadness are both common here at COP when discussing the fates of current and future generations.
I was reading this and noticed the representative’s comment about how young people do not influence the negations. As a teenager who is concerned about the problems in the world and the climate change is occurring, how can more young people have a voice and influence in what is going on around them?
I think that people in the US need to be more informed on the climate issue, for I would hope that the people would have an influence on the government. With a new president coming up I don’t really know how the government is going to change. As a young person I would like to know the opinions that me as a young person has to help out with the climate issue?
Well, that is understandably depressing. It’s true that Congress does not come to a consensus on much of anything, and a lot of Americans barely pay attention to what is going on and being discussed in Congress. I know a lot of youth that want to make a difference, but we don’t much about what we’re dealing with. I think the youth can make a difference if we do our research and utilize our voices. People will eventually have to listen.
I do believe that America needs to open their eyes and see what problems in climate change we’re influencing. In my opinion, Americans are selfish; we want to do things our way. It also kinda pissed me off when the representative said that young people don’t have an influence. I believe that we can make a difference; if we can begin to tell people about our world and how climate change is becoming worse and worse now when we’re young, then I know that when we get older and become leaders we’ll really begin to open the eyes of America.
I find it really interesting how that representative summarized what the main problem with climate change is for his country. It is interesting to see a smaller country’s perspective on climate change. However, I found it a little upsetting that he thought that young people could not make a difference. Do you agree with him that young people can not have much influence or think that we can shape the future?
We definitely believe young people have the ability to aid in global climate recovery. We are the new generation that will have jobs and will be making the decisions when everyone else is dead (not to be harsh). We also are full of young ideas and techniques to help aid in the climate recovery. As younger teenagers, we have grown up thinking in a different way than other people. We’ve also seen what the damage of global climate change is doing in America and around the world. We experience new things everyday at school and in our homes. We have fresh minds and fresh ideas. Those ideas could be used to think of solutions to the global climate change issue. Everyone is a valuable asset to global climate change whether they are thinking of ideas or putting those ideas into action.
Thank you for these hopeful words! Pass them on to Leila, Claire, Sydney and Isabelle! I agree that youth can make a difference, though I was admittedly during this encounter. In Al Gore’s speech at COP21 he gave the example of Kennedy declaring that there would be a man on the moon at the end of the decade. Those NASA engineers who made this happen years later were only 18 when they heard the challenge. This story is meant to show that we as young people are hearing the calls for climate justice and we have the potential to do great things if we listen.
I am not sure who wrote this comment about the surprise meal, but it is a wonderful post and a wonderful opportunity. Thank you!
In 1994 I attended the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo as a representative of the press. While waiting 3 hours we were stuck in a hot, crowded room. The man seated to my left was a true journalist from Camaroon who spoke no English. He had no water so I shared my water bottle with him. He said “Pourquoi vous vous interes en le sujet de population?” I had had 3 years of high school French and a semester at Swarthmore, but was able to fumble through and tell him my feelings about human population.
More than any other event at that huge conference, that conversation has stuck in my mind and has helped motivate me. Perhaps your conversation with the representative from Comoros will do the same for you.
Richard Grossman, Swarthmore ’65
Mr Grossman,
Thank you for your comments and interest Swarthmore’s involvement at COP21. Your experience with the journalist from Camaroon sounds similar in many ways to my experiences. I agree that some of the most influential parts of my time at the conference were the conversations I was lucky to have with people all over the world. I hope to keep these stories with me for years to come.
Best,
Indy Reid-Shaw’17
On Friday Dec 4, NPR’s radio program The Takeaway featured fellows from the GroundTruth Project which seeks to train journalists to investigate social justice issues and disseminate their findings to inform the public. Six fellows of this group shared some observations about COP21, one of which is that when the White House holds a press conference, questions to be asked were pre-assigned to large media organizations. As a result, crowd-sourced questions from young people which one of the fellows intended to ask (and had his hand up all the time) did not get to be asked of the President. The Group felt that one of the first steps towards having an influence is to get a seat at the table, and it can start with being able to ask a question (and obtaining an answer) at a White House press conference. The entire radio segment can be heard at
http://www.thetakeaway.org/story/young-journalists-covering-paris-climate-summit/
Thank you for this link and story!
This is a general answer to my many students who have written replies and even the original statement here. It is true that the world often discounts and overlooks young people because they are just that, young. Many of us in the older generation have a different view of that. I believe that each one of you has the ability to make a profound, lasting difference in this world. You just need to keep going and find others who are moving in the same direction. The solution may be difficult to reach and you may not go in a stright line there, but it is essential that someone takes that journey. I say why not you? Why not now? How can i help you start?