Climate Conference in Madrid enters in the second week where the UN and campaigners have said Children and young people must be at the heart of dealing with the climate crisis.
Over the last weekend young people including Greta Thunberg played a leading role to protest for climate crisis in Madrid with other activists.
On Monday, entering in the COP 25 conference she put more pressure on negotiators to come up with a plan for reducing greenhouse gases and handling the impacts of climate breakdown.
Penelope Lea, a 15-year old from Norway who was the first climate activist chosen to be a UNICEF ambassador said, “We need to keep giving the decisionmakers the power to make the changes we need to see. People have a right to knowledge, and an obligation to get knowledge. Some say we have to wait for people to get ready for change. But we need to make people ready. These are some of the things the youth movement is trying to do, and have to do to ensure progress at COP25.”
She also told that Governments of Chile, Costa Rica and Spain with several other countries already signed up to an international declaration to work for climate crisis accepting it as the rights of children.
The organizers, including UNICEF, believe this will encourage countries to include special consideration for children.
“I understand the despair and rage that so many young people and older ones too are feeling. All of us know the facts and so far, there has been far too little real action. Children and young people have a right to participate. We need to implement the principle of intergenerational equity that the Paris agreement sets out,” said Michelle Bachelet, the UN high commissioner for human rights.
Mary Robinson, a former president of Ireland, said: “The children have called out the adult world, called us out very effectively, as this is a grave injustice. When I was growing up, I did not have that shadow [of climate breakdown]. It’s not fair that we have made children have that fear.”
Around 500 million children are currently living in the areas that are considered as extremely high risk of floods, cyclones, hurricanes, storms and rising sea levels.
> Dipto Paul
COP 25: Children are Able to Handle Climate Crisis Effectively, said UN
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