The dire outlook for Argentina’s renowned higher education system under President Javier Milei, a right-wing populist, was highlighted on April 22 – Earth Day – by Argentine plant ecologist Pedro Jaureguiberry, who was announced as a finalist in the prestigious Frontiers Planet Prize.

​“The current budget for universities in 2024 is insufficient, adding to the fact that in recent years we have only received 20% of the budget we asked for conducting research at our lab,” Jaureguiberry,  an assistant researcher with the Multidisciplinary Institute of Plant Biology at the National University of Córdoba (UNC), told Climate Home.

The 44-year-old scientist, who has spent his entire academic career in Argentina, was shortlisted for the award as one of 23 national champions drawn from science research teams across six continents, in recognition of a study he led on the drivers of human-caused biodiversity loss.

Dr Jaureguiberry conducting fieldwork in central western Argentina. (Photo: Diego Gurvich)

Of the finalists, three international winners will be announced in June in Switzerland, receiving prize money of $1.1 million each for their role in groundbreaking scientific research.

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With annual inflation running close to 300%, this year’s freeze on Argentina’s government budget for universities and scientific research amounts to a spending cut in real terms of around 80%, according to the University of Buenos Aires, which this month declared itself in an “economic emergency”.

On Tuesday, university teaching staff and students, backed by trade unions, will march in Buenos Aires and other cities “in defence of public education”, which they say faces a grave threat from the budget squeeze.

Met office hit by layoffs

Argentine meteorologist Carolina Vera, former vice-chair of a key working group responsible for the latest assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said that in four decades of teaching and research she had never seen “such a level of dismantling through the reduction of research grants and programs with such disdain for knowledge”.

“This is very serious for atmospheric and ocean sciences, key to issues such as climate change, placing a whole new generation of meteorologists and climatologists in danger,” she told Climate Home from Trevelin, in the southern province of Chubut.

There has been widespread condemnation of 86 layoffs affecting administrative and other contractors at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), while Vera added that she is concerned about the situation at the National Meteorological Service, where 73 technicians have been let go. That, she warned, would affect the functionality of early warning and disaster prevention systems.

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Climatic and meteorological challenges are increasing in Argentina, from heavy rains due to the El Niño weather phenomenon – which has caused an ongoing dengue epidemic – to extreme heat and wildfires.

A significant drought is forecast for the southern hemisphere summer of 2024-2025, from November to February, as El Niño gives way to an expected La Niña, with the National Meteorological Service having a key role to play in predicting conditions and disseminating information about them ahead of time.

Vera added that the budget restrictions on CONICET would also limit its research capabilities, particularly relating to climate change. “​We hope that this will be reversed soon,” she added.

Greenlight for extractive industries

Milei has branded climate change a “socialist lie” since 2021 and has also questioned public education for “brainwashing people” with Marxist ideology.

Sergio Federovisky, deputy minister of environment during the previous presidency of Alberto Fernández, said Milei is not only disdainful of scientific views on global warming but also on broader environmental protection. For example, Milei – a former university professor and television pundit – said during his presidential campaign that “a company can pollute a river all it wants”.

“Climate denialism is not a scientific position, but rather an argument used to release all types of extractive actions that could be hindered by an environmental policy on the use of natural resources and the concentration of wealth,” Federovisky told Climate Home from Buenos Aires.

Meeting between Argentine President Javier Milei and Elon Musk in Texas, United States, at the Tesla factory on April 12 2024, forging a partnership through which the government is betting on attracting investment to Argentina. (Photo: Prensa Casa Rosada via / Latin America News Agency / Reuters)

In an economic review published on February 1, which unlocked $4.7 billion to support the new government’s policies, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) expressed its support for investment to increase the exploitation of oil and gas reserves and metals mining in Argentina, in order to boost exports and government revenues.

World Bank head Ajay Banga told journalists before last week’s Spring Meetings that the Argentine economy is going through a “whole economic realignment”. The bank “is supportive of the direction of that economy” and looks forward “to working closely with their leadership to help them as they go forward”, he added.

Yet he also noted that the bank’s latest review of economic prospects for the region highlighted challenges, including the impacts of Argentina’s correction, with regional GDP projected to expand by 1.6 percent in 2024, one of the lowest rates in the world and insufficient to drive prosperity.

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The IMF’s support for Milei’s neoliberal economic policies has been strongly criticised by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), which said on Friday that fiscal austerity “is not the answer when people’s lives and their democratic rights are at stake”.

“The IMF is celebrating the budget surplus in Argentina, but it’s indefensible to ignore the human cost of this economic shock therapy,” the ITUC’s General Secretary Luc Triangle said in a statement.

“Pensions have been slashed, thousands of public sector workers fired, public services are on the verge of collapse, unemployment is growing and food poverty spreading.”

Last week the government attempted to head off Tuesday’s protest by announcing a last-minute budget increase for maintenance costs for universities. But that was rejected by a national council of rectors and has not deterred the movement against the austerity measures, with large numbers set to come out onto the streets as planned.

(Reporting by Julián Reingold; editing by Megan Rowling)

The post Argentinian scientists condemn budget cuts ahead of university protest appeared first on Climate Home News.

Under the Least Developed Countries Universities Consortium for Climate Change (LUCCC) each university will develop a curriculum on a designated theme, which will then be shared throughout the network.

For example, the University of Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania will develop a course on climate finance. That will then be adopted across the ten participating countries.

Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are the 48 countries with the lowest human development index in the world and are greatly impacted by climate-related disasters such as typhoons, floods and droughts.

Out of the 48, universities from 10 countries are participating so far: Nepal, Tanzania, Sudan, Bhutan, Mozambique, Uganda, Bangladesh, Gambia, Ethiopia and Senegal.

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The Paris climate agreement calls for help for developing countries to address climate change through various activities including “education, training and public awareness”.

“What used to happen was that consultants from developed countries would fly to developing countries to do training and research on climate change,” said Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development at the Independent University of Bangladesh.

“The LDCs challenged this in Paris because we need to strengthen the capacity of our own institutions to do research and provide training at national level, a long-term intervention.”

He said it was shortsighted to pay again and again to import skills from developed countries when every country has one or more universities with the ability to train and conduct research that can empower its citizens.

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“Through our universities young people will come up with skills on climate change,” he told Climate Home after the project was launched in the Ugandan capital of Kampala on June 26. “We just need to enhance the capacity of our universities.” 

The initial phase of the project – developing curricula – has no external funding, said Huq. “We may have little resources but it doesn’t mean we don’t have resources at all,” he said. “For now the institutions are sharing information and that doesn’t require funding.”

“Students need guidance not money,” he added.

It is not just the university students that will benefit but also the communities impacted by climate change, according to David Mfitumukiza, a senior lecturer at Makerere University in Uganda.

“It’s the communities that are impacted by climate change and they need to be armed with knowledge to help them cope with the impacts,” he said.

He said there is a gap between the information produced by universities through research and the communities it is meant to help.

“Students are our entry point and they will help us reach out to communities, which we are also targeting with this programme,” said Mfitumukiza.

LUCCC was launched on the first day of the 11^th International Conference on Community-based Adaptation which also took place in Kampala.

LUCCC also aims to provide research that can galvanise the voice of LDCs in international climate negotiations, where they are ofter outgunned by western countries with enormous scientific and academic institutions to call on.

The post Universities in global south aim to end reliance on western experts appeared first on Climate Home News.

Do politicians need better advice and analysis on climate impacts to allow them to make better strategic decisions?

By Erin Nash and Yuan Yang, Rethinking Economics

Millions of students across the world take undergraduate economics courses each year. They will leave to take on roles in academia, business, politics and policy-making.

The ways in which we are taught to think will frame how we respond to the global challenge of climate change. And yet, we economics students are not being educated to open our eyes to the world.

We are instructed to divert our attention from reality and to focus on our textbook models. We are encouraged to think of our discipline as value-free, scientific, and authoritative.

This approach gives us little chance of engaging with the challenges of climate change with the nuance and consideration they demand.

This is one reason why more than 65 student groups across 30 countries in the ISIPE global network are seeking changes to the way economics is taught at universities. We call for pluralism: a diversity of values, methods and schools of thought in economics.

Is economics value-free?

The reality is that the economists that are currently produced by many of the world’s top-ranked universities are severely ill-equipped to make judgments on what is good for society.

We are not taught to scrutinise the ethics of our judgments; we are not taught to recognise the boundaries of our discipline; and we are not encouraged to think critically about our methods.

Harvard economist Gregory Mankiw has asserted that “like most economists” he doesn’t “view the study of economics as laden with ideology”. He recently wrote that the “dirty little secret” of economics who give policy advice is that they become political philosophers. “Our recommendations are based….on our judgments about what makes a good society,” he said.

Mankiw’s view that economics is value-free and apolitical is reflected in his macroeconomics textbook – the predominant textbook for undergraduate teaching.

And yet economists must make both explicit and implicit ethical judgments all the time: in selecting what level of welfare present and future generations ought to enjoy through the use of ‘discount rates’ within economic models; and in using monetary measures such as prices to indicate worth, despite many people considering many things in life – humans, human relationships, parts of our natural world – priceless.

An example of value-ladenness is in what economists do and do not choose to discuss.

Early on, we are taught that we cannot and should not make comparisons between the welfare of different people; so an economist has nothing to say about an island being submerged if some people in the global North are made better off.

If we’re lucky, we might get introduced to a slightly more sophisticated measure of efficiency (Kaldor-Hicks efficiency). This states that if a rich country is happy to pay a poor country to accept its hazardous waste, polluting abroad rather than at home, that should just be considered an efficiency-improving exchange.

According to John Ashton, former UK climate change envoy, the problem with current economics is that it cannot distinguish between “growth that recognizes resource and ecosystem limits and growth that pretends they do not exist.

“Anyone who tries to make such distinctions is committing the heresy of ‘directionality’.”

Towards a realistic economics

The current approach is not the only way to see the world.

Tom Green of the Liu Institute for Global Issues writes in his survey of economics textbooks that increased GDP generally means increased matter and energy. But the reverse could also be true.

“Rather than seeing increasing throughput as a sign of economic health, ecological economists argue that a healthy economy achieves high levels of wellbeing with a minimum of throughput,” he writes.

The intellectual insularity of modern economic teaching is partly achieved through its isolation from real-world issues.

Oxford University tutor Alex Teytelboym accused the undergraduate economics curriculum of focusing on “cute theoretical models” that had not been subjected to empirical analysis. “Climate change economics requires the opposite approach.”

We are currently within a critical decade for climate action, and economics as a discipline has enormous potential to play a positive role in this. Yet our economics education is largely silent on the reality of the climate crisis, despite its importance to our individual and collective futures.

This crisis has been one of many reasons students are now rethinking economics. In response to the crisis of economics teaching, we are forming alliances worldwide: with students, academics, and all citizens. Two weeks ago, we simultaneously released an open letter across 20 countries calling for pluralism in economics teaching.

The world is waking up to see the links between our planetary crises and the state of economics teaching.

The authors are members of Rethinking Economics, an international network of students who want to ‘demystify, diversify, and invigorate economics’. Find out more on their website.

The post Climate change means we must rewrite economics textbooks appeared first on Climate Home News.

Climate change is now back in the UK geography curriculum after indications from education chief Michael Gove it would be left out (Pic: DOE)

By Adam Dyster

In recent months, climate change education has hit the headlines.

It’s been introduced in the US curriculum, and threatened to be removed from the parts of the UK’s. It’s an issue that has sparked much debate, and in the UK’s case, outcry from thousands, particularly from young people and schools (to recent success). So why has education sparked such interest and been considered so vital an issue?

Education is vitally important for several, key reasons. It can deliver the scientific facts about the biggest issue facing young people, something that is being felt by millions worldwide. It equips youth with the skills to help combat climate change, and be part of a green recovering, and positive future.

It also encourages young people to be involved as global citizens, and involves and engages them in an issue that’s impacts will be felt most keenly by those now going through the education system.

We have a responsibility to educate, not only bound by international convention, but by moral and ethical duties. Schools must educate young people about the world around them, so that they are informed with facts and key issues.

Education should keep up to date with science and academic thought. Just as the facts and science of stem cell research or alcohol abuse are taught, because of their relevance and strong scientific foundations, so should climate change and sustainability – indeed, even more so, given the magnitude and impact of environmental issues.

Facts not fiction

Such education must be about facts and science, not treated as the political football as it so often is. Such politicisation mires the issue, and means that the urgency and relevancy of climate change education is often lost amidst political point scoring. This should, as with other relevant science-based issues, be an area of consensus, not party political manoeuvring.

Beyond establishing the facts of the issue, education can have be a great force for good, preparing young people to face, and indeed improve, the world after education has long been completed. How can we expect creative solutions and innovation to combat climate and sustainability issues if we don’t educate the next generation about them?

The UK campaign against the removal of climate change from the Geography curriculum is itself proof of the power of education.

Esha Marwaha, at 15-years-old, was able to write so eloquently on the dangers of removing climate change that her petition gained over 30,000 signatures in a matter of weeks. Yet without education, would we get another Esha, or another generation of activists, or even another generation who care about climate change. Without education, those who want or who’re able to combat climate change will surely be in the minority.

New jobs

This is especially relevant with the need for innovation and sustainable development. Currently the green economy is nascent, its burgeoning growth providing employment and a viable alternative to resource hungry industries and economic models.

But positive growth needs new generations who both understand the need for alternative development and have the passion and desire to act.

Education has a key role in showing young people that not only do they have wider responsibilities, but also that they are entitled to involvement in decisions.

Climate change and sustainability are issues that cut across generations, and the decisions that are made today will have impact not upon the generation that makes them, but generations to come.

Education can help give young people the tools to take part in these decisions, allowing them to enter into the debate.

UN agreements

Finally, there is a legal obligation for many countries to educate about climate change. Under Article 6 of the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, signatories are obliged to: ‘Promote and facilitate …the development and implementation of educational and public awareness programmes on climate change and its effects’.

This article is clear and direct, and must not be ignored.

However in many respects this legal obligation is a lesser consideration when compared to the moral obligation each generation has to educate the next about climate change.

Education is the most powerful tool and can engage young people in the debate, prepare them for working with the green economy, and give the definitive science and facts about the biggest issue facing young people. To quote H.G. Wells: “Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.”

Adam Dyster is a first year history undergraduate at University College London and a member of the UK Youth Climate Coalition. Follow him on Twitter @AdamDyster

The post Comment: education is the key to addressing climate change appeared first on Climate Home News.

People from the largest greenhouse emitting countries struggle to appreciate their environmental impact because they are so disconnected from the rest of the world, the Seychelles Environment and Energy Minister has said.

Tourism provides one means to change attitudes and awareness towards conservation and climate change, according to Prof. Rolph Payet. This in turn would make them put more pressure on their governments when they return home.

“People in rich countries don’t appreciate the consequences of their actions. They say if they can afford it, what is the problem?  They don’t understand that their actions are destroying the planet,” said Payet.

“It would help if there was more awareness from voters. I have had the opportunity to travel and I understand why people in big countries think that way, they are so disconnected from the rest of the world. Tourism is a gateway that can help educate them,” he told RTCC.

“We’ve shown that this is possible. Where you have investments from tourism you can enhance the quality of the environment, you can enhance the protection of species. We’ve had animals come off the endangered list as a result of conservation action financed by tourism.”

To do this however, Payet says the environmental message must be repackaged to get away from the “treehugger” label.

“That makes people switch-off and think they are just going to be told don’t so this don’t do that. The message has to be friendlier, more understandable and we have to engage with tourists,” said Payet.

The low-lying Seychelles are vulnerable to rising sea level, increased storm surges and the effects of ocean acidification.

The Seychelles is launching tourist tree planting and ocean education programmes to engage rather than lecture visitors.

The post Seychelles plan to give tourists green education appeared first on Climate Home News.

Education will be a key tool to addressing climate change.

It helps young people to understand and address the impacts of global warming and can also be vital in helping them to adapt to climate change.

The role of education is widely accepted in the global frameworks to tackle climate change and sustainable development.

Article six of the UN convention on climate change specifically focuses on the challenges of communicating, teaching and learning about climate change.

Chapter 36 of the Agenda 21, set up at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, also highlights the importance of education, public awareness and training.

Across Europe and Africa, young people from United for Education and Sustainable Futures (UESF) are coming together to promote education as the central issue for driving a sustainable future and tackling climate change.

Billy Batware, from UESF talks to me about his personal experience fleeing the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and the struggle he faced with his education.

As part of RTCC’s youth series, he explains why this is a topic so important to him.

What is your group doing and what areas of work do you focus on?

Our idea is based on the belief that education is a human right that should be granted for everyone. What we do is try and provide education for all. We advocate, promote and support adequate education for everyone. In our case we only focus on children and youth in developing countries.

We are motivated very much by the ideas of former US President Roosevelt, who said that democracy cannot succeed unless we express our choices and choose wisely. In other words the backbone of democracy is education. This is very much what we believe.

We think that for every developing society education is probably the number one basic element that is needed to drive them to make more sustainable choices.

We started in 2009 and are based in Vienna but have representatives around the world.

This year we focused more on developing our international network and decided to set up international representatives of our organisation, which is really a team that is made up by local people. For instance, when we look to start a project in a country, our representatives who are on the ground act as our eyes to select the right projects.

Through our representatives we make sure that our projects are really evidence based and are based on the needs of the people on the ground. We want to give them ownership of the projects.

If you look at any other initiative being run, this is one thing that I think is really missing. How sustainable are they? Both educational projects and others.

Our efforts are really based on one project at a time. We do not move from one scheme to the other without ensuring its success first. So far we have been working in Kenya – outside Nairobi – in a primary school.

It is in a very rural area and when we got there the school had no roof; children had no uniforms or books. We started out with a very small project to provide the children with some form of uniform or books.

The problem we then found was that they were going to school and then they would go home hungry and then would not come back the next day. What we did was to expand the project to also provide meals for the children when they are at school.

Then when that was sorted we started with the work of repairing the school and in doing so we realised there was an even bigger problem; the lack of access to water.

The lack of water – and water that is not clean – was leading to diseases that were keeping the children from school. We expanded the project even further to build a water well that was a very big project – the logistics of doing it in that area were quite complicated.

So we are now at the point where we have decided to provide the school with all of the necessities to make it a success story in the region before we then move forward. We do not believe it makes sense to give a small amount of money to several schools and in the end, make very little difference.

What we also do is support and advocate for education and organise and participate in different events. We were represented at the Rio+20 summit as part of a project with other organisations. We do a lot of awareness of education and its importance.

UESF believe that education is key to tackling climate change and promoting sustainable development (Source: UESF)

What results have you seen from your work so far?

I think, in my view, the main results we have seen so far are the awareness of people themselves in regards to education and the importance of that. We have seen that through the engagement from young people, not only our representatives around the world, but also the volunteers who have helped – either organising fund raising events, writing articles for us, maintaining our website. We depend very much on volunteers.

We have seen a huge increase in the number of young people who want to get involved with us. The creation of our international representatives has also at least shown us that people are interested in what we do and that is very important to us.

Although we believe that finance is a problem for many NGOs we really think that once we have a strong team, an international team who are really committed, then we will achieve our objectives.

What are the challenges you have faced in your work?

The setting up of our team of international representatives was a very difficult thing to do.

It is not easy when you are starting out as an NGO. It is not easy to get people involved in it as you have to convince people that what you are doing is different from what is already out there.

It is difficult to really get people into it; so setting up the team was very difficult. There are all sorts of legal systems that you have to go through, especially when you are young people who are still studying and do not have money; it is difficult.

In the end we managed and are now at the level where we are receiving applications from different parts of the world that want to get involved with us.

I think we are happy where we are today. It could always be better but we are satisfied and are encouraged by how the work is going so far.

What support have you seen for your activities?

We are very happy with the support that we have seen from young people because that is our demographic and it is crucial.

I like to think that our organisation is youth led, but is guided by wise (not old) people who have been there and done things and who can guide us through the technicalities of working in an organisation.

We have support from local NGOs. For instance we have very strong support from an NGO called ACUNS, Academic Council on United Nations System that is based in Canada but has an office in Austria. They have been behind us, especially in regards to giving us space to be part of the events in the United Nations, which gives us publicity. That has been very helpful.

We also have very strong support at the United States Institute for Peace. One of the directors is a very close friend of our organisation. This is really needed and is very crucial for our own credibility too. As a young organisation, led by young people we face challenges of trying to prove we are really credible.

In addition to that we also have support from different educators – especially what I call peace educators. People who are advocating for education and peace. In the end what we are trying to achieve is that once we have attained sustainable development, we will create a peaceful world.

What are the impacts you are seeing in your country and local area from climate change?

If I look back over the last two or three years in Austria I find a lot of changes. The climate has changed here; there is less snow in the winter and summer is too hot. This June they recorded the highest temperature for that month ever.

There are signs of the effects of climate change. If you look at the fact that there is less snow and more heat, it means there is less water, that could lead at some point to impact on water costs or irrigation systems for instance. In the end, if the trend continues it might lead to a change in food prices.

I am happy that the government of Austria is actually doing things in these regards. They are trying to promote more use of public transport, so for instance we have a reduced prices for long-term tickets on public transportation.

They have also increased the price of parking cars in the cites, which means you more or less have to make the choice between paying a lot to park your car or taking public transportation, which is very reliable in Austria.

I can really see actions being taken on the part of the government. I have to say I am happy about it.

Of course the government can’t do anything about less snow or more heat. The fact they are at least trying to push people to use more public transportation is a step towards tackling climate change.

What would be your vision for 2050? What do we need to see this year at COP18 in Doha to achieve this?

I am very much an advocate for education and my vision would be to reduce the level of illiteracy in developing countries by 50%. If I am realistic and we could do that, it would be a step forward. Of course I would want education for everyone but realistically that is not going to happen.

What we are fighting for is to make sure that happens. It depends on how many challenges we face before then. But we are ready to face the challenges.

It will in my view require more commitments from governments. We face a lot of difficulty in that regard and it is very difficult as individuals or civil society without the commitment from policy makers.

Certainly this is something I would want to see at COP18 in Doha. It was something that was lacking in Rio and I would like to continue to see more civil society participation in these dialogues. If you look at how civil society has emerged as a major player with regards to global challenges it is really incredible. There is almost no part of the UN system where civil society is at least not present.

Sometimes they are not making any statement or recommendations but they are there and they are listening and they are making reports and talking about it in their own meetings and in their own ways.

What would help your group to move forward in its work?

Batware says young people have to fight for their own future (Source: UESF)

My group has energy; we are committed. I think all we need are the tools really. Financially we could do with more help. A financial system is crucial to keep us motivated and keep us going but I think that we need publicity, more commitment from the people we are trying to get involved in the process.

It would help to be at the main places where we can meet other NGOs, other civil society participants and to share our ideas and experiences. Financial support is very crucial – although it is not the only thing that we need.

Why did you get involved in the group? What is the role of youth groups in the climate/environmental agenda?

For me starting the group was very personal. I come from Rwanda. Rwanda is one of those countries that experienced tragedies in 1994 from genocide. I left in 1994 and I personally struggled with my education and I know from experience how important education is. It is not just a belief that if education is universal and education is important for societal development, it is also personal for me.

I was privileged to get education and benefited from that and I wanted to give back to the next generation. For them to get the opportunity, not from going through what I went through but to avoid what I have been through.

I think that the conflicts that are happening around the world, especially in developing countries and in Africa specifically can be tackled through education. If people are educated now they will understand the need for human rights, the need for respect of other people’s lives and to find other ways of solving their problems and getting answers to the conflict that they have.

There are ways of changing situations and finding solutions and one of those is via non-violent means and I think education can bring that.

If I can contribute in any way to the lessening of violence, of poverty, of diseases, through education then I will be happy.

For youth like myself, and even those younger than me, I think the world is clear. What is happening around the world effects them most, they will have to go through the effects for longer.

Not that we are saying the older people don’t care, but I believe younger people have higher stakes in this. It is their time. The future belongs to them. I am sure they do not want to inherit a world of conflict and poverty and climate change. They want to live in a world where they can feel safe and in a world where they can make history together.

I certainly believe young people have a role in this and a responsibility as in the end they cannot expect anyone to prepare a future for them, they have to play a role in this in order to achieve that.

More RTCC Youth Profiles:

Youth Profile #15: Canadian youth rise above dirty domestic policies and push for climate action

Youth Profile #14: Costa Rica’s youth eye a carbon neutral future

Youth Profile #13: Giving youth a platform at the European Parliament

Youth Profile #12: European activists demand governments put their futures ahead of ‘dirty industry’

Youth Profile #11: China’s young activists out to prove they do care about climate change

Youth Profile #10: Life on climate change’s frontline with the Australian Youth Climate Coalition

Youth Profile #9: Young entrepreneurs driving sustainability at US campuses

Youth Profile #8: Why education is key to developing climate awareness in Ghana

Youth Profile #7: Why Indonesia’s biodiversity is at the front line of the fight against climate change

Youth profile #6: Meet the African coalition that brings together 54 countries to tackle climate change

Profile #5: Bangladeshi youth fight to give world’s second most climate vulnerable country a voice

Youth Profile #4: Nepal’s youth fight to save Himalayan paradise from effects of pollution and climate change

Youth Profile #3: Canada’s climate coalition on taking on the Tar Sands lobby and fighting for Kyoto

Youth Profile #2: How PIDES are working on practical solutions to climate change in Mexico

Youth Profile #1: How Nigerian Climate Coalition are building green bridges ahead of COP18

The post Inspiring climate change action through education in Africa appeared first on Climate Home News.

The United States is often the central battleground for the climate debate.

The US hit the headlines this summer with record breaking temperatures, drought and wildfires.

Many scientists – including those from the UK’s Met Office and the USA’s National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration – warn are more likely with advancing climate change.

And the events this summer could be changing public opinion on climate change in the US with a University of Texas poll in July showing 70% of American’s now believe the planet is warming.

With the country heading towards an election in November, environmentalists remain on their edge of their seats to see how the outcome of the elections could impact the country’s climate policies both domestically and internationally.

On the ground across the country, however, young people and students aren’t waiting for politicians or climate sceptics to catch up and are already driving sustainability at their colleges and on their university campuses.

Formed in 2008, by Chris Castro and Hank Harding, two students at the University of Central Florida, IDEASforUs aims to drive innovation and empower students and young professionals.

As part of RTCC Youth Series, I spoke to Castro about the group’s projects, climate change in the US and taking IDEAS global.

What is your group doing and what areas of work do you focus on?

IDEAS is a youth led sustainability movement and we’re basically comprised of chapters at different US universities, K-through-12 schools and some communities. Our purpose is basically to empower youth and emerging professionals to become change agents for sustainability.

I am the co-founder of this movement and I started the first chapter of IDEAS at my university, the University of Central Florida (UCF) four-years-ago in 2008. I was a sophomore and I was really interested in getting students engaged in the environment and sustainable development.

We didn’t have the concept of replicating and making a movement, we just really wanted to be sustainable on our campus and be action orientated and implement projects. Over time different friends of ours at different universities we’re saying “you guys are making real big headway, we either want to partner our organisations that are doing similar things so we can be a part of your movement or create a new chapter”.

IDEAS UCF, UF, FIU at the Southeast Student Renewable Energy Conference (SSREC) (Source: IDEASforUs)

We have grown to 25 universities in the US and just recently in May we became an accredited NGO through the United Nations’ Department for Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) – and we are also getting accredited through UNEP. Basically with that accreditation through DESA we were able to have a presence at the Rio+20 Summit.

In addition to that we were at the World Youth Congress that was two weeks prior to Rio+20 in Brazil and we were at the UN Youth Blast, so we had a presence for those three weeks. We had a number of different leaders who were in Rio and looking to partner with different youth and host projects. Because of that trip, in the past month we have been talking with youth leaders from more than 10 different countries whether they are already existing organisations or again a youth leader looking to start a chapter of IDEAS.

We are talking to people in Nepal, in Nigeria, two in Ghana, in Sweden, Columbia, Panama, Haiti and so the point is we are coming together to share best practices and initiatives, and actual solutions that youth can implement in their campus or in their community to progress themselves towards sustainable development.

It is very exciting, over the last four years we’ve developed nearly 40 different projects and these are projects where students have been empowered and have taken on a leadership role and have actually created an initiative. Once an initiative is successful at one university we create a tool kit and then add it to the toolbox of IDEAs organisations for all of our chapters to pick and choose from.

All of the initiatives fit into five categories – we call them the five pillars of sustainability – energy, water, food, waste and ecology. Our initiative focuses on the five pillars and they focus on youth empowerment and basically active citizenship to get people involved on campus.

IDEAS FIU hosts the Kill-a-Watt Energy Challenge educational seminar in the dorms (Source: IDEASforUs)

One project which is very popular, and continues to expand, is called Kill-a-Watt. It is basically an energy competition for on campus dormitories and on campus residents. We take it a step further and add interactive educational seminars throughout the competition and host a coming together at the end. We compare behavioural change to see if that has an impact. We have seen incredible savings.

At UCF for example in the three-month competition we saved $41,000 and 441,000 kilowatt hours of electricity in one three-month competition. Because of that, the US Department of Energy came down and did an entire video about the competition and how we are engaging youth to save energy on our campuses.

That initiative spread and is now at over five different university chapters. On average we are saving at least $21,000 for every two to three month competition and we have seen a lot of universities take our model. So we have created a tool-kit, a step-by-step guide, so a student could read it and go through the process of setting up a similar competition on their campus.

Another really important project that has been popular for more of our international chapters has been something we call Innovations Think-Tank. This is a concept where we are bringing together campus students, community stakeholders, and professionals – anybody who is interested – multi-disciplinary people. We are going through a strategic process where we breakout and we identify challenges and solutions for the major problems that we are facing in our communities.

We like to focus on the five pillars but we have seen that the Innovations Think Tank can also be for a wide range of things. It could just focus on policy or the challenges of education and the whole point is really to come together with this group to identify challenges, stakeholders and then the solutions to addressing those. It has been amazing.

Now we are doing global, virtual, Innovations Think-Tanks with our partners in Nepal. We are also doing one for the Africa Youth Conference and we are going to be doing them via Skype so youth from different parts of the world can communicate, we can share the challenges that we are both facing in different socio-economic areas and can come up with solutions together.

We encourage our chapters at universities to host these once a month because it is a great way to develop new ideas. That is basically the whole point of our organisation.

Another big initiative that is pretty popular is this concept of up-cycling. Up-cycling has been an initiative where people have really come together at the universities to create new ways of doing things. One that is popular is T-totes. We take t-shirts and using solar power and completely off-the-grid energy we sew them to create tote bags. We aim to completely eliminate single use plastic bags and offer people a complete solution on a campus where they can up-cycle a t-shirt that is in the bottom of their draw that they will never use again and they can now use that to have one less plastic bag when going to the grocery store.

We do campaigns where people bring us 50 plastic bags and they get a free T-tote and they get to actually create this by themselves, right there with the help of us. The cool part if our chapters get really innovative with this idea of T-totes. Some of them will go out and fundraise for a solar panel so they can do it completely with solar. Some will create a bicycle turbine connected straight to the sewing machine and as you pedal it is going up and down. So we really try to make it interesting and give it to the chapters to be creative and create new concepts of up-cycling.

IDEAS attends the Bonoroo Music Festival as "Eco Change-Agents" for the sustainable section (Source: IDEASforUs)

We actually won a competition because the T-totes competition was through Campus Progress or the Centre for American Progress, a pretty large organisation here in the US and we received best campaign of the year for that.

Up-cycling also goes into other products. We take juice cartoons and turn them into wallets; we take plastic bags that we make into bracelets.

One more I would like to highlight is called IDEAS for ARTS. ARTS stands for Artistic Representation Towards Sustainability and our concept here was we need to start engaging other people in different disciplines, not just environmental or biology majors or people studying physics or engineering. We need to start getting the artists, the lawyers, and the educators on board with this movement.

One of our members who is an inspiring artists said ‘Look I am going to start a competition called IDEAS for ARTS’. We call out to our art schools and art departments to host the competition with our local museum of art in our local community and we basically encourage youth and artists to make art which focuses on sustainability using different mediums – oil painting, up-cycling projects, theatre, different things.

That has really started to take off. We did an amazing one here in Orlando; it has started to spread to Tallahassee and other schools. Everybody loves art and it is a great way to promote sustainability and at the same time have a really good time.

What results have you seen from your work so far?

There are now over 4,000 different members who are engaged with IDEAS. We started as a group of 10 people at UCF and over four years we have grown to over 4,000 members.

People have graduated and created initiatives – for example the IDEAS for ARTS. There is an initiative called Ecosystem Facilitation that people have taken to now create a company out of. So we are starting to see that these cool activities and programmes are now turning into potential entrepreneurial opportunities for some of the students. The economic situation right now really sucks and the way we are going to get out of it is small businesses and innovation and entrepreneurship.

We are starting to foster and encouraging new initiatives which are turning into new non-profits and that are even turning into for-profit ventures. We have five incubations of new companies that are spawning out of IDEAS so I think that is an incredible metric.

Then with Kill-a-Watt for example, we have saved over all of our chapters over $100,000 on utility bills at these universities. So we are helping to reduce carbon emissions, we are helping to engage students at the university and then save energy – ultimately to save money.

I could go into tonnes of trash we have removed from clean-ups and stuff like that – we hundreds and hundreds of pictures of us doing clean ups – but those some of our main metrics.

What are the challenges you have faced in your work?

IDEAS For Education initiative helps incorporate sustainability into K-12 schools (Source: IDEASforUs)

This group – believe it or not – has not been funded for four years. This has been a movement fuelled by what we call passion for change. A student who is just fed up by the fact that we have all of these challenges and no one is doing anything about it.

One of the major challenges is sustaining this. I personally have a full-time job, I work 40 hours a week for my own energy company at the same time I come home and work another 40 hours a week to continue this movement.

We are starting to get into the realm where we are starting to get donations and we are looking towards grants and foundations as well but the biggest hurdle in this movement for the past four years has been funding and has been the financial resources to sustain us because it has been completely volunteer based from our board of directors to the chapter leaders at each one of these universities.

It is incredibly inspiring – people will get empowered at the fact that there is nothing coming out of this other than sheer passion for change and wanting to make a difference in our communities.

I think another challenge we have faced is predominately at a campus level at each one of our chapters, administration. It has been about getting through the loop holes and the red tape to become a registered organisation or it has been about trying to implement campus policy which will shift our campuses to becoming more sustainable.

For instance there is a campus policy that we focus on called the Student Green Energy Fund and this is an incredible concept – we have about 17 universities trying to push this. The whole point is to create a tax on students. It sounds kind of crazy but we wanted to tax ourselves 75 cents per credit hour – a full time student is about 12 credit hours here so about $10 a year – that would pool money strictly for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects on campus.

Now at the University of Central Florida where I graduated that would generate $990,000 a year for these projects.

The hardest part is that in the past three years we have been butting heads with the board of trustees and the board of governors in the state of Florida to actually pass this through the legislation system.

It has been a hurdle to deal with the administration when passing student referendums. Student government put out polls and we pass 86-90%. Students want this tax implemented on them but the administration is saying ‘no thank you we do not want to tax you guys more.’

They’re here saying we are not progressing because we don’t have funding, we are here saying we have a solution, we will fund ourselves and we will pay more to go to the school and it is not working out.

It has been a hurdle but we are actually making progress and this year looks like the year we are actually going to get one or two universities to pass the fund, make a showcase model and then in the coming years really spread it across universities around the world.

What support have you seen for your activities?

We have had some great support. Although the administration has been a hurdle, at times the administration has been our best friend. And really what we have found is that partnering with certain campus departments, whether it is the energy department, the landscape department, partnering with those departments allows us to make a connection and push forward with initiatives which we know are going to make true change.

Just recently this past year we have been really reaching out to our local politicians and legislators who have partnered with us on many campaigns. For example our commissioner here in our county has hosted a lot of different projects and programmes with us. So they help us out with the funding, bringing out volunteer support, and we go out within a community and do an environmental restoration.

It has been really great to work and negotiate with city officials and commissioners who really have a say in how we are going to move our cities forward.

In addition our former governor, Bob Graham in the state of Florida, he has recently jumped on board with IDEAS as almost like an advisor for us and he is helping us to make connections with different state congressmen and senators so that we can begin moving forward.

IDEAS hosted the 1st-ever 350.org International Climate Day of Action (Source: IDEASforUs)

Other organisations, other non-profits and NGOs, such as 350.org, tcktcktck, Avaaz, Peacechild International out of the UK. All of these are partners of ours who we have got some incredible support from – not funding wise but programme wise – partnering on different campaigns which are getting our word out their and getting IDEAS out there to the world.

What impacts are you already seeing in the country from climate change?

In the US we are currently having problems with wildfires that we are experiencing at the moment and are tracing back towards drought and things like that – that has been a big thing. On the lake here we have heard a huge debate about corn and how the ethanol industry, the cattle industry and the food industry are all competing for this one crop that is doing horrible in this climate right now. Food and fuel are big deals.

In Florida in particular where I am there is an extreme amount of salt water intrusion into our aquifer. Florida has a fresh water aquifer under us and limestone in between and there is a lot of intrusion going in areas such as Palm Beach and South Florida where their wells are coming up with salt water. This normally would never have happened. This is in the past two to three years that we have seen a huge amount of salt water intrusion into the coast of Florida and obviously that is dealing with sea level rise and a number of other implications.

More RTCC Youth Profiles:

Profile #8: Why education is key to developing climate awareness in Ghana

Profile #7: Why Indonesia’s biodiversity is at the front line of the fight against climate change

Profile #6: Meet the African coalition that brings together 54 countries to tackle climate change

What would be your vision for the world in 2050?

The challenges that we are facing today and that we are going to be facing in the decades to come are primarily going to need to be focused on and attacks by our youth. Not even necessarily our generation but also the ones that are coming.

We are kind of in the middle at the moment. We are in this tipping point where our generation needs to be the ones to lay the groundwork for the generations to come and I think that the next people to come – those who are not even born to 10 years old – are going to be some of the major change-makers.

As far as what I would like to envision. For one I am huge on energy so I would like to envision a majority of our energy from around the world to be coming from renewable and alternative sources. I think that our energy crisis must be interdisciplinary and it must be integrated into a localised energy source – whether that is solar in your region, wind in your region, geothermal over here. It needs to all come together. We are too stuck on the silver bullet right now on the fossil fuels powering everything.

Energy, in my opinion, will be one of the biggest hurdles of what we are actually facing because it is so connected to water, food, and our waste stream. It really encompasses a lot.

I think the 2050 goal is obviously over 50% renewables. We need to be at 80% in my opinion, but realistically if we hit 50% renewable by 2050 that would be huge. Right now we are at less than 10% and with the corporations and the industries that are running this world right now it is very difficult to sway them so they see an economic benefit in investing in these technologies and completely transitioning our worlds.

IDEAS UF hosting Canoe Clean-ups in Rattlesnake Creek (IDEASforUs)

I think we need to incorporate more than just GDP into our economic systems for our countries. Obviously people’s happiness is a big one as well as nature’s happiness and the quality of the nature environment around us needs to be integrated into our GDP. That obviously needs to include our carbon emissions because right now that isn’t being included and that is one of the major problems.

Reinventing what GDP means and including ecological aspects and social aspects and not just the economic will be a major tipping point for progressing towards sustainability.

I think if we can tackle those two things the 21st century won’t be as grim as it is looking right now.

What would help your group move forward in its work?

One thing is visibility to the world. At this point we have some very cool, creative solutions that we want the global youth to get a hold of. We want them to know that they can be empowered to make a change and see the same results that we are seeing across the world.

That is why we are reaching out to youth movements in different countries. In Ghana, Nigeria, Nepal and we are not only partnering with one organisation but we are looking for a group or coalition of organisations to work with to disseminate this information and these solutions.

Obviously funding is another and finding true foundation and true partners who see the absolute need for this and the importance of getting youth engaged in this movement and really putting their money where their mouth is and allowing me and the rest of our team and the rest of other youth in the world and focus in on this for our life goals.

I would love to this to be my career goal for the rest of my life. Maybe it is because I am a founder of it and I want to see it continue to move. It is tough right now.

Continuing to make relationships with other non-profits, other NGOs and other corporations even who are willing to help us to grow and in creating new solutions all over the world.

Why did you get involved in the group? What do you think youth bring to the climate debate?

I personally got into this movement when I had a choice to make – I was undeclared at my university to tell you the truth. I had to make a choice of what to pursue and I looked back on my childhood and I fortunately grew up on a palm tree farm and my family still owns and operates an exotic palm tree farm. My entire life growing up I was not only connected to the natural world, grew my own crops and sold them, but I was also connected to the oceans – I am a surfer and a diver.

My sophomore year I had a decision to make and I stumbled on a new programme at my university that focused on environmental studies and sustainability and for some reason I had a calling. The first class I took I knew I had made the right choice.

I followed my passion. People don’t do that today and that is exactly what I did and because of it I have had opportunities at the US Department for Energy, I worked for my university and now I work for the county and there are so many things that have come from following that path.

My really good friend Hank Harding – the other co-founder of IDEAS – and I both had the same vision and I think when you have a teammate or somebody else who has the same vision it is a lot easier. We encourage people when they are starting new chapters to build a team. Before you start doing anything, build a solid team.

IDEAS at Greenwaves III Sustainable Music & Arts Fesival (Source: IDEASforUs)

I think that the youth’s major difference is creativity. We are not hindered by the norms of our world. We don’t completely understand everything that is going on and if anything that is an incredible benefit because we think completely differently. We are thinking completely outside of the box and we are not looking at things in the same parameters in which our world functions. The solutions that we need to solve today are not going to be solved by thinking in the same box as our problems. We must come at them with a completely unique innovative approach and great new ideas.

That was our drive in creating this, if we focus on the youth who have that potential we could actually come up with solutions and we have seen success from them.

We still have the ambition I feel – even with all the negativity and the constraints – to think outside and see how can we solve it.

More RTCC Youth Profiles:

Profile #5: Bangladeshi youth fight to give world’s second most climate vulnerable country a voice

Profile #4: Nepal’s youth fight to save Himalayan paradise from effects of pollution and climate change

Profile #3: Canada’s climate coalition on taking on the Tar Sands lobby and fighting for Kyoto

The post Youth Profile #9: Young entrepreneurs driving sustainability at US campuses appeared first on Climate Home News.

Ghana’s 25 million citizens are under an acute threat from climate change.

The country’s economy is dependant on climate sensitive activities. More than half of the population subsists on agriculture and cocoa (the main cash crop) with fishing providing another major economic activity.

More 80% of Ghana’s electric supply comes from hydropower generated on the Volta River Delta – itself affecting by varying water levels.

Inland and coastal flooding, drought, and declining water levels on the Delta are all starting to have a significant impact.

Earlier this year Jeremais Blaser, UNDP Deputy Country Director for Ghana called on the country to stop ignoring the impact of climate change which he said is making the population more vulnerable and hampering the country’s efforts towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

One group of young people in the country are ready to take up Blaser’s challenge.

Formed earlier this year. the Ghana Youth Climate Coalition (GYCC) aims to engage and educate both the youth and the general public on climate change and potential adaptation.

As part of RTCC’s youth series I spoke to Jamal Musah, founder of the GYCC about the group’s formation, its aims and its vision for the planet of the future.

What are your group doing and what areas of work do you focus on?

The Ghana Youth Climate Coalition works to mobilise, educate and empower the youth to advocate on climate change issues and also become the driver of change in communities. Currently we are working on green initiatives to create awareness about climate change and what the general public can do to control the situation. We work with senior high schools and junior high schools and we have also been creating awareness through the media to get the message out to the general public on issues concerning climate change and what we can do to adapt to the situation.

Currently one of our programmes is the Green Initiative Tour where we go and visit institutions to create awareness about climate change and also through working with the media.

We only started our operation a few months ago so we are now working on how we can be involved with the international youth climate movement but recently we have begun finding different environmental organisations that we can partner with. We have not reached a final conclusion but we are looking for ways to participate internationally.

At the moment, we are working in partnership with International Youth Environment Photo competition (IYEPC) where we encourage youth to make a photo documentary about their  environment.

What results have you see for your work?

Through our Green Initiative tour the youth and the general public have begun to appreciate more about the concept of climate change issues and appreciating the need to act and adapt to the situation.

We have about 100 active members and we are looking at forming climate change clubs in many of the country’s high schools where we visit, to get them involved in advocacy.

What challenges have you faced so far in building the coalition?

With this organisation the main challenge is our funding. There are some rural communities – especially the farming areas – where we wish to educate them about climate change issues and how they could adapt to it. But getting the means we have to mobilise ourselves but inadequate resources are making it difficult for us to achieve that objective.

We are trying as much as possible to reach out to domestic and international organisations for funding..

What support have you seen for your activities?

We have other groups in Ghana we should be partnering with very soon to undertake projects on environmental issues. Now we are looking at having partnerships in Ghana as well as other governments. We want to build partnerships with the governments, the media, and other organisations that will help us to get recognition wherever we go.

We are also in partnership with the Ghana Environmental Protection Agency.

The Ghana Youth Climate Coalition is currently running a tour of the country's schools (Source: Ghana Youth Climate Coalition)

What are the impacts you are already seeing in the country from climate change?

In recent years, we have experienced a lot of flooding in many parts of the country – including areas where it has never occurred. Ghana has for sometime now been encountering severe drought situations during the dry seasons.

What would be your vision for 2050? What do you think needs to happen to make it a reality?

The Ghana Youth Climate Coalition would like to become a global channel for advocacy for mitigation and adaptation to climate change. Personally I would like to see a sustainable environment not just in Ghana but the whole world as well.

I hope by then our political leaders and all stakeholders would have initiated appropriate measures which are binding to tackle the crisis we are facing and to prevent unforeseen circumstances.

We are the world – all of the countries joined together are the world. All the countries have to come together as one and reach an agreement and to set out the projects needed to reach the agreement. We need to have the political leaders decide on something to be put in place to help cut down greenhouse gas emissions of industries and also have the public contributing. That would be our vision for 2050.

What would help your group to move forward in their work?

Getting partnerships with governments, the media and other organisations as well. Also that partnership with government should mean they recognise what we are doing and the message we have.

The organisation would also be more active by  getting access to funds to embark on adaptation and mitigation projects and also getting the opportunity to attend all relevant local and international conferences to enhance our knowledge.

Why did you get involved in the group? What do you think youth groups’ role is in the climate/environmental agenda?

I decided to form this organisation in order to improve the environmental situation in Ghana. I had the motivation  as a result of being a  member of Global change makers where I realised  youth across the world have been taking actions to improve the situation of the climate change crisis by holding their stakeholders accountable.

I also felt that the environmental and climate change education in Ghana was very low and it is about time we the youth had a voice to save our future environment through sustainable living.

We the youth are the future of tomorrow so when the youth come together as one to advocate over the current situation we are facing in our environment the general public and stakeholders will realise the importance of saving our future environment.

 More youth profiles:

Youth Profile #7: Why Indonesia’s biodiversity is at the front line of the fight against climate change

Youth profile #6: Meet the African coalition that brings together 54 countries to tackle climate change

Youth Profile #3: Canada’s climate coalition on taking on the Tar Sands lobby and fighting for Kyoto

The post Youth Profile #8: Why education is key to developing climate awareness in Ghana appeared first on Climate Home News.

Indonesia sits on both sides of the climate change debate.

It’s a poor country at risk from extreme weather events, and yet it is also one of the world’s worst emitters of greenhouse gases.

A 2007 World Bank report placed them third in emission levels behind China and the USA. This was largely down to deforestation, land degradation and forest fires.

The government is taking action – at least on paper.

They have climate targets aimed at cutting emissions by 41%, stemming deforestation. Increased renewable energy capacity, incentives for the low-carbon economy and a pledge to cut poverty levels by 50% are all key tools.

But it’s a difficult road to tread. In a country with the second largest forest cover worldwide and where 110 million people still live on less than $2 a day, the temptation to create more farmland by felling trees is acute.

The world's largest archipelago Indonesia is the third largest emitter globally (Source: smagdali/Creative Commons)

Many forest fires are started by local communities with the aim of providing space for crops and animals. So a major part of the challenge lies in confronting these attitudes and behaviour.

In the country’s capital city, Jakarta, a growing movement of youth aim to improve environmental education and transform the city to one with green space and biodiversity at its heart.

As part of RTCC’s student profiles I spoke to Putri Ayusha from Transformasi Hijau about the work young people are doing to encourage change in the city.

What is your group doing and what areas of work do you focus on?

My group is called Transformasi Hijau or trashi for short – in English you can call it Green Transformation.

Trashi is a volunteer based community that is focused on urban environmental education. Some of our concerns are about green open space, green transformation and biodiversity in our city Jakarta.

Our activities aim to engage and encourage young people to know more about biodiversity explore our green space and then conserve the remaining biodiversity in Jakarta. We have several activities, such as bird watching, clean up activities, recycling workshops and creative campaigning using social media and the Internet.

The main target of our activities is young people. In Jakarta young people are almost 30% of the population and if this number can work together as active agents for our environment we believe we can tackle the issues affecting us and our environment at large.

In addition we also promote youth education about Indonesian biodiversity as a whole from upstream, to downstream, from forests ecosystems to urban ecosystem, and costal and island ecosystems. This is one of our larger objectives.

What results have you seen from your work so far?

Since we were established in 2010 we have conducted numerous environmental activities and campaigns. We have promoted green lifestyles and stressed the importance of green open spaces to more than 1000 people in Jakarta and in Indonesia at large, both through online and offline campaigns.

As a voluntary based community and working in an urban area it was really great to see a response and the involvement from our public society. For example, our clean up activities – our trash buster activities. We have done around three or four of them since 2010, at the remaining mangrove forest in north Jakarta and every clean up has been even more popular.

This group is expected to guide young people – especially in Jakarta where it includes students and communities – to explore and complete learning activities in Mangrove forests. We have a guide book that was created by a young transformer as the result of their own activities exploring Jakarta’s green open spaces, particularly mangrove forests through bird watching activities, observation and also explorative learning.

The group work in north Jakarta's last remaining mangrove forest (Source: Transformasi Hijau)

We have also developed networks and partnerships with many existing community and youth groups as well as with donor agencies and the private sector, because we realised these two things – networking and partnership – were important to develop in order to reach our big goals together.

What are the challenges you have faced in your work?

Working in urban areas with its high heterogeneity (its high diversity of people) has already been a challenge for us. Promoting environmental issues to urban people needs creative and unique ways that can be accepted by them easily. We follow communication trends in our campaigns and have developed a social media campaigns strategy to attract these people so that they can join with our communities.

Since the introduction of the Internet and social media – for example facebook and Twitter – in Indonesia, the user-ship of the Internet in Indonesia is the biggest in the world and most of our Internet users are young people.

Working with young people is also challenging. Some of our volunteers are students therefore we have to adjust our activities to fit with their tight academic schedules and school support and permits can be difficult to get. Although education councils have endorsed some of our groups some schools don’t permit and allow their students to join our environmental activities out of their school schedule and curriculum.

The group works with young people and students across the city to explore the existing green spaces, such as mapping the city's mangrove forest (Source: Transformasi Hijau)

Becoming part of the process and the decision making with government is also one of our dreams. At this time we contribute indirectly by supporting other communities that have the same concerns and are working in this way.

What support have you seen for your activities?

A wide range of the public, civil society, governments, NGOs and other communities are always important to reach in addition to funding support. Our prior funding was supported by the Global Environment Facility and also from Indonesian Biodiversity Foundation and other private sector.

The mass media always support us by providing space to disseminate our environmental message to the public.

What are the impacts you are seeing in your country from climate change?

Indonesia is the most biodiverse country second to Brazil and yet deforestation, land degradation and forests fires have put Indonesia in the top three largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the world.

At the same time Indonesia stands to experience significant losses because of climate change because we are an archipelagos Indonesia is very vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Increased dryness, extreme weather, changing and heavy rainfall leading to big floods are a few examples of the impacts of climate change.

Indonesia’s biodiversity is also at risk. This may lead to harmful effects on agriculture, fisheries and forestry resulting in threats to food security and livelihoods.

In the agriculture systems – for example the rice fields in Java – the harvests have become irregular. Normally the harvests come two or three times a year but it depends on the weather. Now it has become unpredictable. Heavy rains have washed away many crops and caused major flooding. And in Jakarta itself many communities particularly in north of Jakarta, are hit by the floods due to the rising of sea levels.

I think the impacts of climate change seem like a never-ending story. We cannot stop climate change it is already happening but we can reduce the impact of climate change.

What would be your vision for 2050? What do you think needs to happen to get us there?

Some researchers say that it is estimated that in 2050 the north Jakarta will disappear – up to around 160 km of land or the equivalent of 24.3% of Jakarta. We don’t really want this to happen – no one does. So we work together with other communities to raise awareness, mobilise public support and get information and take action together.

The group has organised several clean up projects titled Trash Busters to reduce the waste in Jakarta (Source: Transformasi Hijau)

For our city Jakarta, one of our big dreams is a dream of more open space in Jakarta and also in other big cities in Indonesia. We want to see 30% of land as open space. In the current condition it is less than 10% open space. We want it so everyone can feel the fresh air and can use the green open space to interact with others and do outdoor activities like sport, environmental education and other activities.

Globally I would want to see collaboration and partnerships amongst youth communities, public society, government, private sector and mass media that would be developing rapidly for environmental sustainability. Then we can live in harmony with nature.

What would help your group move forward in your work?

I think collaboration with multi-stakeholders, public society, youth communities and NGOs will enable us to carry out and develop our activities. Now we are going to work on our bird conservation project with existing youth groups in Jakarta.

And also entrepreneurial thinking. Entrepreneurialism needs to be built as well to provide self-funding for our communities sustainability and currently we are building our capacity.

Why did you get involved in the group? What do you think is the role of the youth in the climate/environmental agenda?

I came to Jakarta in 2008 and I saw Jakarta hit by a huge flood, and huge amounts of waste right after the flood faded away and it irritated me when I saw the waste problem at our last mangrove forest of Jakarta.

Then I volunteered and worked with other volunteer communities to do something to reduce the environmental destruction as well as to raise awareness and promote a green lifestyle. Now I am focusing myself on environmental education with my special interest in youth leadership. I have been working with youth in many youth led activities and encouraging them to engage with the environment and take action.

Internationally I have been involved in the Earth Charter initiative since 2009 and I realised that we are not working alone and that there are so many existing youth groups worldwide that also take action for environmental sustainability and I am very happy to work with them. We have to collaborate to make a huge impact for our environment.

Youth are very crucial for working on climate and the environmental movement.

More Youth Profiles:

Profile #6 – Meet the African coalition that brings together 54 countries to tackle climate change

Profile #5 – Bangladeshi youth fight to give world’s second most climate vulnerable country a voice

Profile #4 – Nepal’s youth fight to save Himalayan paradise from effects of pollution and climate change

The post Youth Profile #7: Why Indonesia’s biodiversity is at the front line of the fight against climate change appeared first on Climate Home News.

It’s not a great time in history to be a Canadian climate activist.

Painted as the baddies of the international negotiation process at the Durban Climate Summit, you could be fooled into thinking that Canada is a country full of climate sceptics and oil companies.

The country made few friends when following the conference it withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, the only legal commitment of greenhouse gas emissions.

And with heavy investment in the extraction of tar sands oil, considered the worst of the worst when it comes to fossil fuels, the country is further alienated itself from environmentalists – both within the country and outside it.

However, there is another side to the story in Canada. One of creativity and the mobilisation of the country’s youth.

In Durban the Canadian youth played a key role in reminding others that there is a still a strong green element within the country and also in holding their own delegation account for its actions.

Amara Possian from the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition has been telling RTCC a little bit more about what action they have been taking over the past year.

What are your group doing and what areas of work do you focus on?

The Canadian Youth Climate Coalition is a coalition of young people and organisations from around the country who use participatory education along with creative campaigns and actions to push our government to act on climate change.

A lot of our work aims to build grassroots power across the country in order to directly challenge climate injustice.

Our main focus right now is organising PowerShift in collaboration with about a dozen other organisations. PowerShift, which is coming up in late October, is a gathering of 1500 young people to network, gain skills for mobilisation, and strategise to keep building the climate justice movement.

The summit is also tied to a campaign to end $1.4 billion in fossil fuel subsidies in Canada. In early June, we launched the campaign through a public theatre action and by presenting a motion to end subsidies to the All Party Climate Change Caucus on Parliament Hill. We’re hoping that Members of Parliament will present our bill to abolish subsidies during the fall sitting of Parliament.

Since 2010, we’ve also run Wings of Change, a for-youth-by-youth popular education program for high school students. The interactive workshop links climate science to practical, community-based alternatives and strategies for collective action. We also try to help participants find their political voices through creative expression. At the end of the workshop, they use words and pictures to show their sustainable vision for Canada on pieces of cloth that become the feathers of hundreds of giant bird puppets that we’ll be using for a creative action.

Every year since the 2006 COP12 negotiations in Nairobi, we’ve sent a delegation of young people to the UNFCCC. The Canadian Youth Delegation tracks policy developments at the negotiations, plans actions that highlight the role that Canada is playing at the negotiations, and reports back home through a daily newsletter, radio podcast, and blogs.

The Canadian Youth Delegation joined forces with the Indigenous Environmental Network in Durban to protest against Tar Sands (Source: CYD_DJC/Flickr)

We also have an exciting upcoming campaign!

In September, we’re going to be launching the Clean Energy Campuses project with the goals of helping university students understand the impacts of the tar sands as well as the tar sands’ relationship with our post secondary institutions.

What results have you seen from your work so far?

We’ve helped build capacity in the movement by giving a whole lot of youth the skills and knowledge they need to become the change our generation needs to see in the world.

Our national director and I actually just returned from the Earth Summit where, during the Youth Blast conference leading up to Rio+20, we gave a few workshops on creative action and movement strategy, as well as corporate influence in the UN process.

Last summer, we ran a series of six four-day regional Power Summer camps across Canada that provided 150 youth with the tools and training they needed to build effective campaigns in their communities. Our workshops ranged from creative non-violent action, to popular education, media and messaging, and anti-oppression and facilitation.

In Rio they joined with other youth and civil society groups from around the world for the people's plenary and walk out (Source: PowerShiftCanada2012/Flickr)

In the past year, we’ve also reached almost 3000 youth through Wings of Change. It’s really inspiring to see what comes out of the workshops. After our workshops, students from Halifax organised a field trip to their provincial legislature to deliver letters to their Members of Legislative Assembly, and workshop participants from a conference in Ontario returned to their schools and began plans for solar panel installation, urban farms, and high temperature composters.

Throughout a lot of our projects, we’ve also effectively used the media as well as creative actions as tools to highlight our government’s cozy relationship with the fossil fuel industry. One of my favourites was our “Buy Back Our Future” bakesale at COP17 in Durban last year where the Canadian Youth Delegation held a bake sale to try to buy back our future from fossil fuel corporations, as youth back home mailed their spare change into the Prime Minister’s Office.

What are the challenges you have faced in your work and what has or hasn’t worked for you?

I think we’re particularly good at turning challenges and barriers into our strengths.  There’s a very simple root cause to the lack of action on climate change: addressing it would be pretty bad for business for the small group of fossil fuel corporations who are currently making large profits at the expense of the planet.

We don’t have the same amount of money, access to world leaders, or resources as this big polluter lobby that dictates our government’s environmental policy so we’ve had to get creative.

Our strength lies in our numbers and our creativity, and where the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition has been successful, it has been because we’ve run campaigns that go beyond the conventional means of registering dissent and making change.

What support have you seen for your activities? 

When six Canadian youth stood up during Environment Minister Peter Kent’s plenary address at COP17 and turned their backs on Canada, a number of organisations and individuals ranging from [scientist and environmentalist] David Suzuki and [Greenpeace International Director] Kumi Naidoo to the Canadian Union of Postal Workers wrote a letter supporting their actions and calling on the Canadian government to people before polluters.

We regularly work with other environmental organisations and where possible, like on the bill to end fossil fuel subsidies, we work with Members of Parliament.

The Canadian Youth Delegation turned their backs on Canada's negotiators at COP17 in Durban (Source: CYD_DJC/Flickr)

We’ve also seen support spread across the country and are really excited to see new climate justice initiatives springing up in places like St. John’s and Saskatoon, places where we had little to no presence before.

What are the impacts you are seeing in your country and locally from climate change? How, if at all, has the way of life in your country changed?

Our indigenous people and northern communities are already dealing with particularly devastating impacts of climate change. Because of the melting permafrost, I have friends in the north whose porches are cracking off of their houses.

Changes in their environment mean a loss of culture and identity because they can no longer carry on with their traditional hunting practices.

A group we’ve worked pretty closely with, the Nanisiniq: Arviat History Project, has a really good series of short documentaries about the impacts of climate change on the Inuit in Nunavut which is worth checking out.

And of course everyone across the country is feeling the impacts of changing weather patterns. I was home in Toronto visiting family this weekend and my grandmother told me she hasn’t been able to go outside because it’s too hot. On my way back to Montreal today, my train was delayed a couple of hours because there was a flash flood and the train station flooded in a matter of minutes.

What would be your vision for 2050? What do we need to see this year in Doha and in the lead up to 2015 to ensure this?

My vision for 2050 is energy democracy. Imagine if we were able to make our own energy instead of relying on oil and coal companies, the same companies who are standing in the way of real solutions because they won’t profit from stopping climate change. A combination of small scale, renewable energy production and conservations systems could make energy affordable and accessible for everyone.

And we already have these solutions – they exist. So we have to ask ourselves why they haven’t been at the forefront of what is discussed at UNFCCC conferences.

Governments and large fossil fuel corporations aren’t going to make this happen because they have way too much invested in the status quo. Energy democracy needs to be brought about by a people-powered movement.

In Doha and in the lead up to 2015, we need to use our creativity and our numbers to make it impossible for global leaders to continue putting polluters before people.

What would help your group to move forward in their work?

I know you probably hear this a lot but funding. It’s remarkable what we’ve been able to do with little to no resources. Aside from the occasional short-term summer student contract, our only paid staff is the National Director.

We would be able to accomplish so much more and plan long term if we were able to pay our organisers and fund our campaigns.  It doesn’t help that the federal government has been targeting the funding and charitable status of environmental groups for the past year or so.

On the political level, we have to think about what’s moving us backwards before we talk about moving forward. Our government currently gives $1.4 billion in subsidies to fossil fuels companies – how can we expect them to do anything meaningful when it comes to the environment when they’re funding the problem?

Our allies around the world can also support us by putting pressure on Canada and preventing pipeline projects or policies that would expand or export the Tar Sands.

Why did you get involved in the group? What do you think a youth group’s role is in the climate/environmental agenda?

"We need to get creative with our tactics, think outside the box, and put our numbers to use" (Source: CYD_DJC/Flickr)

I’ve been involved in environmental initiatives for a long time but I got involved in the climate movement in February 2009 when I went to the PowerShift U.S. conference in Washington, D.C.

PowerShift gave me the tools I needed to start turning the anger and despair I felt in the face of climate injustice into something productive and powerful.

I came back to Canada and worked with a bunch of amazing organisers to organise our first PowerShift conference that October and I’ve organized with a range of groups ever since – Climate Justice Montreal, the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition, and the Canadian Youth Delegation to UNFCCC negotiations.

I think our ability to turn challenges and barriers into our strengths applies here too.

We can’t just rely on conventional means of creating change like writing letters or signing petitions.

When thinking about how to actually create change and sustainable solutions, we need to get creative with our tactics, think outside the box, and put our numbers to use!

Video: Toby Divine from the Canadian Youth Delegation spoke to RTCC while in Durban…

More from RTCC’s Youth Project:

– Mexico’s PIDES talk practical solutions to climate change.

– The Nigerian Youth Climate Coalition talks about building bridges between governments and youth ahead of COP18.

The post Youth Profile #3: Canada’s climate coalition on taking on the Tar Sands lobby and fighting for Kyoto appeared first on Climate Home News.

Cultural beliefs split people’s climate change views, not their level of science literacy, according to a new study.

Published in the journal Nature Climate Change, the research found that an increase in science understanding does not necessarily mean greater support for climate science, and that people are still largely influenced by the cultural groups to which they belong.

It goes against a previous belief that public apathy over climate change was caused by society’s lack of understanding of the topic.

“The aim of the study was to test two hypotheses,” said Dan Kahan, Professor at Yale Law School and part of the study team. “The first attributes political controversy over climate change to the public’s limited ability to comprehend science, and the second, to opposing sets of cultural values.

“The findings support the second hypothesis and not the first.”

The study – a survey of 1,540 people in the US – measured science literacy and a subject’s numeracy, their ability to understand quantitative information. It also collected the cultural viewpoints of the subjects.

It found that technically astute people were in fact more “culturally polarised” than others, tending to side with the view of people in their cultural circles about climate change – fitting evidence into already established positions.

“In effect, ordinary members of the public credit or dismiss scientific information on disputed issues based on whether the information strengthens or weakens their ties to others who share their values,” said Kahan. “At least among ordinary members of the public, individuals with higher science comprehension are even better at fitting evidence to their group commitments.”

The researchers say the study supports the case that a more complex understanding of cultural values must be considered when developing science communication strategies.

Read the full report here.

The post Cultural beliefs split climate views not science appeared first on Climate Home News.

Children are not only most vulnerable to climate change and disasters but a big part of the solutions (© EDV Media Director/Creative Commons)

Half of the urban population are children – below the age of 18 – and therefore will be some of the most vulnerable people to climate change and disasters.

It is expected that as many as 175 million children could soon be impacted by disasters every year.

But with the right engagement of children, who make up 50% of city-based populations, Antony Spalton from UNICEF believes they could also be a huge part of the solution.

Speaking to RTCC at the ICLEI Resilient Cities conference 2012 he said: “I think the key issue is that half of the population in urban centres are children and I think typically people tend to think of children as vulnerable victims who live with high levels of disaster risk, but in actual fact children have intrinsic values on risk and have a lot to offer reducing risk in cities.”

With the world expecting to see huge moves of populations towards urban areas – with around 50-60% more people living in cities by 2050 – NGOs and aid agencies working with children will have to find new ways to engage.

“The experience coming out of the last 30 years in aid and development and humanitarian work has been in the rural areas and I do believe we are not as well equipped as we should be in dealing with what are going to be huge huge disasters in urban areas,” he explained.

“We need to revisit some of the methodologies and tools we use on how we reach out to children in urban areas.”

One of the most vital tools for groups such as UNICEF is school safety and information programmes – not only ensuring the schools themselves are safe from disasters but that the classroom is used a place to engage children in risk reduction.

“Hazards such as earthquakes interrupt education. Not only does that have an impact in terms of mortality, for example if a school collapses – and we know that many schools do collapse – but it also means that children drop out of school and out off their educations.

“Education itself can also engage children in taking steps to reduce their risks and to better understand the environment they are working in and come up with simple measures that will make all the difference if there is a flood, when there is early warning or knowing what to do if there is an earthquake, where to crouch in the building so it doesn’t collapse on you.

“Those messages are not only retained by children but they are communicated back to their homes.”

While admitting that there is still some way to go before the perspective of children is considered widely and acted upon, there are some areas where Spalton believe important work has been done.

For example, in Brazil, UNICEF works with the government in Rio to encourage children to work with local government’s to map the risks in communities – for example the risks from flash floods.

And the Children’s Charter on disaster risk reduction that was developed by UNICEF in partnership with PLAN, Save the Children and World Vision, was put together by children for children in a consultation across 21 countries from across the world.

With 600 decision makers, including mayors and UN offices, having signed up to the Charter there are many places – for example in cities in Mozambique, towns in the Philippines and in Brazil – where at local level real action is taking place to listen to what children do have to say.

The post UNICEF: We must teach urban kids how to deal with disasters appeared first on Climate Home News.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama said climate change is a universal problem that is in everyone's interest to tackle. (Source: Flickr/Serjao Carvalho)

His Holiness the Dalai Lama has criticised the leaders at the UN’s 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Summit calling them “short-sighted”.

Speaking at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), His Holiness talked about the need for unity among those facing environmental challenges.

“In Denmark, at the Copenhagen Summit, you see, nations considered their own interest as more [of a] priority than [the] global issues,” he said. “So, that’s actually short-sightedness.

“No matter how big or great one individual country is, its still part of the world.

“So, therefore, it [climate action] is a common interest. Each individual nation, each individual person’s interest.”

Building on one of his key themes of global responsibility, he called on leaders to build trust.

“Without trust, how can we develop friendship? Without friendship how can we develop genuine meaningful cooperation?” he asked.

The Dalai Lama has a track record of backing environmental causes and calling for action on climate change, particularly in his native Himalaya.

Following a presentation from two leading climate scientists, his Holiness talked of the importance in continuing education on environmental issues. He added that because the effects of climate change and pollution are not as strikingly visible as war or famine, it was harder to make people act.

Wearing a UCSD visor, much to the delight of the audience, he said that the problem with most education systems was that they were grounded in modern economic, rather than ethical, thinking.

“This blue, small planet is our only home. We have to take care,” he said.

The post Dalai Lama: Leaders at Copenhagen climate change summit “short-sighted” appeared first on Climate Home News.

Hughes believes communication on climate change should target those not yet convinced to act.(Source: Wikimedia/Malte)

Darren Hughes, head of communications and public affairs at the Rothamsted Research Institute explores how smarter communications could help prompt climate action from the public and policy makers alike.

We all understand the devastating impacts of climate change don’t we? The evidence is clear and obvious isn’t it? Everyone knows we have to act now to adapt and mitigate, right?

I’m not so sure. Indeed, I am a sceptic. No, not one of those sceptics, but I am sceptical that, despite all our efforts, the message that climate change is real and urgent is not really getting through to people to convince them to change their behaviours with the speed and verve required.

Whilst we see a lot of rhetoric from Governments across the world, I think it’s fair to say that this is not always backed up with concrete action and is often mixed in with a number of counterintuitive policies.

The recent Durban Climate Change Conference (COP17) provided us with renewed rhetoric and Mark Lynas‘ excellent blog eloquently summarises these. But the reality of converting this rhetoric into action, with the speed that is required, remains unclear.

As a science communicator, working at a research establishment focused on creating more sustainable agricultural practices (Rothamsted Research), my days are spent speaking with people who understand climate change and are developing the knowledge and technologies required to tackle the problem.

But my social surroundings are quite different, with quite an eclectic group of acquaintances. Speaking with these people, it is quite clear to me that the messages about our urgent need to mitigate and adapt to climate change are not getting through to everyone.

Perfect Storm

The UK Government's Chief Scientific Advisor Sir John Beddington has described an impending food crisis as the "Perfect Storm" (Source: Flickr/CGIAR)

So what’s the problem? Why doesn’t everyone get it? I believe one of the problems is in our ability to communicate the right messages to the right people.

In other words, we are preaching to the converted. By reserving our conversations to sections of the blogosphere and Twitter feeds where other like-minded individuals live out their virtual lives, we are failing to reach the people we need to reach.

If we are serious about tackling climate change everyone, and I mean everyone, needs to put it at the centre of his or her everyday lives.

What’s the solution then? Clearly we need to be smarter about the way we communicate our messages to reach new and different audiences. We need to understand what ‘floats their boats’ in order to make this happen. An example of how this has been done is through the example of the Perfect Storm.

Just to remind you, the world’s population of 7 billion is projected to reach 9.3 billion by 2050, an average increase of over 160,000 people every day.

Coupled with other factors, for example people moving from rural livelihoods to cities and changing dietary practices as people become more affluent (poverty must be alleviated), this will create an enormous stress on our natural resources, notably on food, energy and water security in the next 20-30 years.

Climate change is at the heart of the security of supply of these three resources. Collectively, the UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir John Beddington, referred to this as a Perfect Storm of events.

By packaging the concept of climate change under a different banner, e.g. the Perfect Storm, or Food Security, it allowed us to overcome two problems, the danger of diluting the climate change message, i.e. sounding like a stuck record, or worse still appearing cultish or tribal; and secondly taking the message beyond the usual suspects to a wider audience.

Changing behaviour

The focus on the Perfect Storm and food security allowed us to take climate-related behaviour change deeper into the farming community, food manufacturers, suppliers, retailers and more importantly the less obvious UK Government Departments.

This is because the actions required to manage food, water and energy security are the same as those required to manage climate change.

Sir John Beddington has concluded: “The challenge for global agriculture is to grow more food on not much more land, using less water, fertiliser and pesticides than we have historically done”. This is a climate smart message, without mentioning the term “climate change”.

In the future, messages about climate change could relate to other hot topics such as financial instability (relating climate change to how it will affect people’s wallets), or political security (price volatility of energy and food leads to socio- economic impacts, such as civil unrest).

You see where I am going with this? As they say in media circles, you need to find a hook to hang your story on.

If we are serious about protecting our environment, we need a concerted commitment from all 7 billion people on this planet, not just the sensible few.

To do this we need to use smarter communications to take the messages that will affect behaviour change beyond the usual suspects, to a wider audience.

To paraphrase Hess’s fundamental scientific principle, there are a number of different paths you can follow to achieve the same result.

Dr Darren Hughes is head of communications and public policy for Rothamsted Research

RELATED VIDEO

Asher Minns, communication manager at the Tyndall Centre discusses the importance of communicating climate change in a clear and transparent way.

The post Comment: Time to get sceptical about climate change message? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Vietnamese child in Thai refugee camp (source: UN/John Isaac)

Over 100 million children and young people are affected by disasters every year, according to the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction.

Children are also often most vulnerable to disasters finding it harder to cope with the unexpected interruptions to their lives.

But, children and young people can make a significant contribution to disaster reduction as well, creating a positive change for the future.

A report ‘Enabling Child Centred Agency in Disaster Risk Reduction’ (DDR) produced by Children in a Changing Climate said: “When children learn and practice DDR from a young age, behaviour change becomes embedded in their lives at such an early stage that it will be passed on to subsequent generations when they become adults.”

The group – a joint initiative by UNICEF, Plan International, World Vision and Save the Children – also produced the Children’s Charter, aimed at raising awareness of the both protect and engage children in DRR.

The charter aims to be “for children by children” and involved consultation with 600 children in 21 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America

Disaster Reduction through schools

ActionAid also believes that by working with children in schools, DRR reaches the hub of the community. Nearly every town or village has a school, so provides an opportunity to reach not only to children but parents, teachers, community elders and local and national authorities.

Their five year ‘Disaster Risk Reduction through schools’ project saw DDR embedded into the national curriculum in Nepal, while in other countries the lessons the children learnt made them agents of change.

John Abuya, from ActionAid said: “Children act as excellent messengers of a culture of prevention – spreading the word amongst parents and the wider community about the need to prepare for disasters.

“They need to understand why disasters happen, when they will happen and what they can do when it happens, and how to live in a way that makes disasters less likely to happen.”

For example when in November 2007, Cyclone Sidr hit Bangladesh; ten-year-old Lamia Akter was able to get her family to safety. She said: “When Sidr came we went to many houses. When I first told my parents they did not want to come. I was crying and very afraid. I said to mum and dad, if you don’t come then let me go. Then my parent said okay let’s go.”

The programme also works to secure schools and local buildings, creating shelters for the community and ensuring education is not disrupted by disasters.

A five-year project, funded by the Department for International Development in the UK and the Greek government, it worked with communities across nine countries – including India, Haiti, Kenya and Ghana.

ActionAid is currently working to give climate change adaptation a central role in DRR.

Opportunities in Adaptation

Climate change adaptation is not only about disasters though, and a new project from the UN aims to open up new opportunities, teach new skills and supply a regular income to the young unemployed.

Under the Climate Change Adaptation and Development Initiative (CC DARE) – a joint project by the UN Environment Programme and the UN development Programme – adaptation is combined with creating opportunities in sub-Saharan Africa and Small Island Developing States.

For 25-year-old Haleka Shisay, from the Tigray region of Ethiopia this opportunity came in the shape of beehives. The CC DARE programme aimed to not only give opportunities to the young and help tackle climate change but also address the food crisis in Ethiopia.

The drought which hit the Horn of Africa hit Ethiopia – where 85 per cent of people depend on agriculture.

Beekeeping has historically been an important income generating activity in the region, and the new project aims to teach young people about keeping bees.

The project has also seen over 1,000 trees and shrubs critical to bees planted, which will help to reduce climate risks associated with loss of water resources.

The post Putting children at the heart of climate change risk reduction appeared first on Climate Home News.