Youth climate activists are to advise UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on climate emergency as part of a new effort to bring young people into decisionmaking and planning on the crisis.
Seven young people, aged 18 to 28, are to take on roles to “provide perspectives, ideas and solutions” to Guterres, aimed at helping to scale up global climate action in the recovery from the COVID-19 crisis and ahead of a crunch summit next year on the climate.
“We need urgent action now, to recover better from COVID-19, to confront injustice and inequality, and address climate disruption. We have seen young people on the front lines of climate action, showing us what bold leadership looks like,” Guterres said.
DIVERSITY
The new advisory group includes: Nisreen Elsaim, a Sudanese woman who is already a junior negotiator at intergovernmental climate forums; Vladislav Kaim, an economist from Moldova; Paloma Costa, a lawyer and human rights defender from Brazil; and Archana Soreng, from India, who works on the traditional knowledge and cultural practices of indigenous people.
Starting next month, they are to provide quarterly updates to Guterres, with a particular emphasis on how the global economic recovery from COVID-19 can be aligned with the drastic cuts needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The question of how to incorporate the views of young people into the UN decisionmaking process at the annual climate negotiations is a difficult one for the UN and the UK, which will host the next round of climate talks, known as COP26.
At last year’s annual climate talks, which took place in Madrid, young activists, women and indigenous people complained that they were given little chance to be heard. At one point, activists were shut out of the conference center for most of a day after staging a brief disruption.
While teenagers and young people of all nations, groups of schoolchildren and many parents wheeling babies in buggies were much in evidence in the wider conference, the negotiating halls were the domain almost exclusively of middle-aged men in suits.
The snail’s pace of the official negotiations — which ended with a partial statement of intent and failure to clear up outstanding technical points — was thrown into stark relief by the sense of urgency and passionate advocacy of civil society, and the 500,000-strong march of people through Madrid, led by Greta Thunberg and other young people.
YOUNG VOICES
“We want to ensure the voices of young people are heard not only on the streets, but in the conference chambers,” said Jayathma Wickramanayake, the UN secretary-general’s envoy on youth. “The reality is that young people today will live with the repercussions [of climate breakdown]. We want to look at the lessons learned from Madrid. This is their future we are talking about.”
The COP26 summit was originally set for this autumn, but has been delayed to November next year because of the COVID-19 crisis.
The Palauan president-elect has vowed to stand up to Chinese “bullying” in the Pacific, saying that the archipelago nation is set to stand by its alliances with “true friends,” Taiwan and the US. Surangel Whipps Jr, 52, a supermarket owner and two-time senator from a prominent Palauan family, is to be sworn in as the new president tomorrow, succeeding his brother-in-law, Tommy Remengesau Jr. In a forthright interview, Whipps said that the US had demonstrated over the years that it was a reliable friend of Palau, most recently shown by its delivery of 6,000 doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. “It’s important for
DELIVERING HOPE: The Japanese PM pledged to push ahead with plans to stage the Games, despite polls showing about 80% think they will not or should not happen Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga yesterday vowed to get the COVID-19 pandemic under control and hold the already postponed Olympic Games this summer with ample protection. In a speech opening a new session of parliament, Suga said that his government would revise laws to make disease prevention measures enforceable with penalties and compensation. Early in the pandemic, Japan was able to keep its caseload manageable with nonbinding requests for businesses to close or operate with social distancing, and for people to stay at home, but recent weeks have seen several highs in new cases per day, in part blamed on eased attitudes
On Sunday last week, in a nondescript building in the Indian city of Gwalior, 322km south of Delhi, a large crowd of men gathered. Most wore bright saffron hats and scarves, a color evoking Hindu nationalism, and many held strands of flowers as devotional offerings. They were there to attend the inauguration of the Godse Gyan Shala, a memorial library and “knowledge center” dedicated to Nathuram Godse, the man who shot Mahatma Gandhi. The devotional yellow and pink flowers were laid around a black and white photograph of Godse, the centerpiece of the room. On Jan. 30, 1948, Godse stepped out in
CAN ‘STILL DREAM’: Lai Chi-wai said he hoped the event would send the message that people with disabilities can ‘bring about opportunity, hope’ Lai Chi-wai (黎志偉) became the first person in Hong Kong to climb more than 250m of a skyscraper while strapped into a wheelchair, as he pulled himself up for more than 10 hours on Saturday to raise money for spinal cord patients. The 37-year-old climber, whose car accident 10 years ago left him paralyzed from waist down, could not make it to the top of the 300m-tall Nina Tower on the Kowloon peninsula. “I was quite scared,” Lai said. “Climbing up a mountain, I can hold on to rocks or little holes, but with glass, all I can really rely on is