Youth and Climate Change

Today, I presented in class a summary of SolarGen activities (i.e. skillshare and IPCC WG3 meeting activities) from April 27 to May 3 in Bangkok, Thailand. I had to be away from school for a week to be there and, naturally, my Environmental Science (ES) classmates and teachers were curious about what exactly I had been up to. Needless to say, it was a great opportunity to talk about both the issue of climate change and what young people (specifically SolarGen) are doing about it.

I launched into a narration of all the planning, painting (of banners), picture-taking (seriously, being in the presence of so many people from the media is an experience like no other, hehe), fruit-shake-blending (with the aid of solar power), and dancing (to the song It's Getting Hot in Here) we did in Bangkok. I would like to think all our hard work paid off in the sense that we were able to communicate the kind of future we wanted to the people we encountered (Dr. Pachauri who heads the IPCC, the Ministers of Energy and the Environment, and the Thai public in general).

So after talking about SG activities, considering that my audience included ES majors, I also talked about the different energy technologies, from solar and wind (go renewable!) to nuclear energy and carbon capture and storage (boo dirty energy and untried technologies!). I also discussed the key principles of the Energy [R]evolution (the Energy [R]evolution report is a really useful resource, by the way -- you can download it here). To close the presentation, I mentioned the key outcomes of the assessment report produced by the IPCC after meeting in Bangkok, and asked the question, "What now?"

For governments, one of the next steps later this year is meeting in Bali, Indonesia to discuss the next phase of the Kyoto Protocol (post-first commitment period from 2008 to 2012).

For us, as young people, we should step up to our role as major stakeholders. As young people today, we are the ones with the most at stake. Ten, twenty years down the road, we're the ones who will be dealing with the issue of climate change, and not the decision-makers today. It's us who will be facing the consequences of whatever they do or don't do. So we should stand up and act for the kind of future we want, one with clean, renewable energy powering sustainable growth. :)

(Offtopic: The glory of having written the first ever entry on the SG Manila blog belongs to me, heehee!)