Youth Climate Conference 2024

Background

Children born in 2020 will experience natural disasters 3.4 times more often than their grandparents born in 1960 according to Save the Children’s 2020 study. These natural disasters will be linked to climate change, such as heatwaves, droughts, forest fires, flooding and crop failure. These conditions pose a serious threat to the environment that children and youth need to grow, develop, learn and feel safe. Another study conducted by UNICEF shows that climate change is the biggest threat faced by children and young people around the world. Climate change poses a threat to children’s health, nutrition, education and future. Children are less able to withstand extreme weather and are more vulnerable to toxic chemicals, temperature changes and disease outbreaks. According to UNICEF, children and youth in Indonesia fall into the ‘high risk’ category for the impacts of climate change.(UNICEF, 2021).

In urgent situations where human activities are negatively impacting the climate crisis, immediate action can be taken to ensure that the impacts of the climate crisis are mitigated and at a later stage, the lives of billions of children on earth can be improved. Collective efforts as well as the right decisions from national and global leaders are needed immediately. Delaying to respond to this serious situation will only exacerbate the problems of the environment and the lives that depend on it, especially for children and young people. The reasons for including youth in this movement are: a) youth must be part of the discussion; b) service improvement requires consultation and consideration of youth through proper participation; c) youth must realize and share in the benefits of sustainable growth; and d) youth must be part of discussions that are often dominated by adults. (Borojevic, Petrovic, and Vuk, 2012).

In order to understand the climate crisis and also seize the opportunity to turn the crisis into a better situation, collaboration with various parties is needed to voice these concerns to future Indonesian and global leaders. With the hope that Indonesia’s future leaders will recognize this critical situation and integrate it into national development plans, the Youth Climate Conference will be presented with meaningful participation and other activities to raise awareness about the climate crisis and the importance of the energy transition agenda.

Objective 

The goal of the entire conference and its follow-up activities is to unite the voices of children and youth across Indonesia on climate issues and ensure that their voices are heard by Indonesia’s future leaders. These leaders can turn these youth voices into policy. One of the issues that needs to be incorporated into future development plans is how to reduce the impact of the climate crisis on children and young people.

During the reading of the declaration, the youth representatives will hand over the declaration to the government representatives (i.e. Ministry of Environment and Forestry and Ministry of National Development Planning/Bappenas). The reason for choosing these ministries is because both ministries are currently preparing development plans as well as climate change policy frameworks at the national level. We hope that the aspirations expressed during the declaration can be integrated into the next national development documents.

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Date

Jul 27 2024
Expired!

Time

08:30 - 15:00
Category

Speakers

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