A Challenging Subject: Children and Humanitarian Leaders Debate Climate Change
December 2009 - Copenhagen
"Children are in the frontline and their rights should be to the fore" - So said the former President of Ireland Mary Robinson, to Marius, 16 from Netherlands before a packed auditorium at the Politiken Haus, Copenhagen.
Both were participating in an intergenerational dialogue entitled Young Leaders of Today: Leaders of Tomorrow hosted by Politiken, a leading Danish newspaper. The event was part of the Humanitarian Day activities taking place in Copenhagen as part of the UNFCCC fifteenth Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP15). Ms Robinson and Marius were just two on a panel of twelve made up of six young people together with six leaders of humanitarian agencies.
A wake up to reality
Joseph, 12, from Kenya and Ivalu, 15, from Greenland both shared their experiences of how climate change was already impacting their communities, family livelihoods and their futures. Joseph dreams of becoming an engineer but, as things are today, is unlikely to see his dream realised - his family need his help to try and produce food from drought ridden lands, keeping him from his studies. Ivalu sees her traditional culture melting away alongside the ice as traditional hunters and fishermen migrate to the cities for work. They challenged the panel to help their communities and to ensure that they can grow up in a world where they have a history to inherit and a future ahead of them.
"We are in a pickle" agreed Josette Sheeran, Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme. The world, she said, has woken up too slowly and a generation of children could be lost as a result. John Holmes, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief openly recognised this as a challenge, and said that whilst the root causes of climate change need to be tackled, in the short-term changes to the climate are not going to be stopped. He then emphasised that we do already have the knowledge to reduce disaster impact and build resilience to change - but it must be mobilised better at the community level.
Ulla Tørnæs, Denmark's Minister for Development Cooperation responded that the COP15 negotiations were aiming to do just that; both tackle the root causes of climate change and develop the means to support communities including children to adapt.
A question of governance
Further stories from young people raised the issue of government accountability in responding to climate change. Arame, 24, from Senegal shared her experience of a community made increasingly vulnerable to climate impacts as a result of ‘bad government decisions', whilst Dita, 17, from Indonesia shared her frustration following her attempts to ask the Government to act on climate change. Supported by Xiao, 23, from China they asked the panel how they could work together to make the voices of vulnerable people, including children, heard and how they, as children, could support them in their struggle.
All the adult panel members stressed that more linkages should be made between sectors and with children and their communities so that by bringing different perspectives to the same problem, the call to act would be strengthened.
A smart way of working
The meeting's Chair, Charlotte Petri Gornitzka, Secretary-General Save the Children, summed up some of the debate claiming that those who only think of children needing protection will ‘lose out'. She recognised that whilst children's participation is a right, they also have solutions to offer. So really, "it's just smart to listen to children and youth".
The overwhelming message to tomorrow's leaders from the leaders of today was that they should be proud of and continue to do what they are already doing - bringing the voice of children and vulnerable people into dialogue with others.
The young panellists were encouraged not to wait for political decisions but to use their energy and creativeness to begin solving the problems whilst the world's leaders talk.
The event was supported by Children in a Changing Climate partners UNICEF, Save the Children, and Plan International alongside International Federation of the Red Cross and hosted by Politiken, a leading Danish newspaper.
For more information on this event contact Dan Walden
