Description
As the COP26 president put it, this is a make-or-break moment in our climate crisis. The world is watching and we need to act urgently and deliberately to reverse the effects climate change has had on our earth. Climate change is an umbrella term that describes many phenomenon, it is felt the worst through changes in the water cycle like droughts, flooding, melting ice caps, and more. This is why the WYPW crafted a youth letter, bringing all of our national chapters together, to use the spotlight of COP to demand global leaders take action that will protect our planet and our most precious resource, WATER.
We are Thirsty for Change
Dear global government representatives,
We, the World Youth Parliament for Water (WYPW), a network of passionate young people across the globe fighting and advocating for positive change, are demanding local and national governments to pass bold legislation that will combat climate change. The world is not currently equipped to deal with global-scale crises and disasters, as is evidenced by the still ongoing CoVID-19 pandemic. The ever-worsening climate crisis poses a more severe threat to humanity that the world is presently also not prepared to handle. Covid-19 has shown the world that we are currently not equipped to deal with global disasters – an ominous warning sign if we do not address the climate crisis immediately. Young people (<30 years old) makeup about 50% of the population (United Nations, 2019) and live on the same deteriorating Earth we have now. We, the youth, are key stakeholders in the conversation about climate, representing ourselves and future generations. We currently live with the consequences of past inaction, and we will live with the decisions that will save our futures or doom us further into a climate crisis.
Global efforts, at present, are not enough – we aren’t on track to achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement according to the 2021 IPCC report. The impacts of climate change, felt most through extreme changes in the water cycle, damage not only the economy but also our communities, our cultures and our democratic stability.
We, young people across the globe, demand that you use your political power to generate creative solutions that allow economic development that does not destroy our future and to incentivize that actors in private businesses contribute to this effort. The new generations are willing to support these efforts, but we need accessible spaces and opportunities to be agents of change in our countries and communities. We are in a historic moment and opportunity to reverse the current global environmental crisis. Time does not forgive!
We are calling for legislation that:
- Purposefully includes young people from all walks of life, particularly those from vulnerable and marginalized communities, to participate in climate and water decision-making. We want to be considered as partners, not beneficiaries, to tackle the challenges ahead together. We need inclusive public policies and sufficient budgets.
- Boldly creates policies that are recommended by climate experts that emphasize the need to pay attention to our warming globe and water-related disasters.
We have witnessed small pockets of the above in action before and it created powerful storms of change. When Greta Thunberg was given a platform, she inspired mass protests, positively influenced leaders, and put a spotlight on climate and its importance, which influenced net zero-emission goals across the globe and more. Thanks to Indigenous-led protests against the Energy East Oil Pipeline, 236 million metric tons of CO2 pollution are saved annually (Oil Change International, 2021). If governmental bodies are inclusive and take actions recommended by specialists then WE CAN SAVE THE EARTH.
Young people will continue to hold our leaders accountable for our exclusion from the decision-making forums we belong in, and for the choices, others have made for our futures. The only way forward is through meaningful inclusion in these spaces.
WYPW Signatures representing our members and other youths around the world:
References:
United Nations, Population Division World, World Population Prospects 2019 (July 2019)
IPCC, 2021: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [MassonDelmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S.L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M.I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R. Matthews, T.K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu, and B. Zhou (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press. In Press.
Oil Change International, Indigenous Resistance Against Carbon (August 2021).
