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During the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen (7-18th December 2009), the International Climate Challenge project gathered the voices of over 1,000 you people from across the UK, Kenya and India. Read the "Hear Our Voices" booklet.
And these young people have a simple message for world leaders, summed up by Molly, age 13 from Upton-by-Chester High School in the UK, “We need you to make the right decision for us...Your choice will change the world forever. No matter how important you may feel your voice is, it is vital you make a decision that will make the earth important. Unless you make the right decision your children, nieces, nephews, friend will have a harder life than your today.”
The International Climate Challenge (ICC) project has produced an inspiring booklet containing a selection of the voices of young people it has collected in the past few months. The booklet, entitled Hear Our Voices – young people from India, Kenya and the United Kingdom give their views on climate change, will be delivered to Copenhagen as part of the Children in a Changing Climate delegation.
The insightful and thought-provoking voices include pleas for world leaders to act:
“As youth from an arid region of the third world, we speak in one voice and with a lot of concern that developed countries should stop emitting harmful gases into the atmosphere that have disastrous effect on our environment.”
Students from Garissa High Schools, North Eastern Province, Kenya.
“At the moment climate change is just a weapon for political campaigns; nothing is being done that’s effective enough. It’s like saying ‘sorry kids, but you can’t have a future because the adult generation is too greedy and selfish to care about the children.”
Mathew Taylor, aged 15, Holsworthy Community College, UK.
“Today’s decisions influence tomorrows future…You don’t want to throw your kids in at the deep end.”
Adam Duddy, age 13, St Columb’s Collage, Northern Ireland.
To testaments of the impacts of climate change already effecting children:
“…global warming has affected the crops so much that farmers are in trouble. Some years the rain is so much that crops are destroyed. Some year there is very less rain that there is no crop. Because of it the rate of food gains has increased. The time will come when adequate supply of food will not be there.”
Priyanka S Yadar, MLRT Gala Poineer English School, India.
A strong, hopeful and active voice emerges from young people in India, Kenya and UK, amongst the many voices desperate to be heard at Copenhagen and beyond.
Commenting on the voices Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director said, “These 1,000 young voices need to be heard loud and clear in Copenhagen in 2009 – because they represent the generation that will inherit the consequences of the position and decisions taken by world’s leaders at the UN climate convention meeting.”
John Davidson, Head of the International Climate Challenge said, “Many have said this is possibly the most important conference since the end of the Second World War. Many who fought in that war felt they wanted to build a better future for them and their children. The same challenges face us today and we must listen to the voices of the next generation and work to give them a future in which they can grow and thrive.”
The International Climate Challenge hopes that world leaders will see sense in Copenhagen, put narrow self interest to one side and act in the interests of all young people around the world. As Becky O’Rourke, aged 10 of St James’ CEC Primary School in the UK says, “I may be just a child but I have an opinion. Climate Change started years ago and I think it has been given to the wrong people to sort out.”
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Audrey,India