OVER 150 youth delegates gathered at the Qatar National Convention Centre Friday to meet with a panel of United Nations (UN) leaders and negotiators and lend their voices to the debate on the future of climate change.
The delegates came from all over the globe and represent numerous civil society organisations.
The meeting was part of COP18/CMP8's Youth Day, which highlights the effects of climate change on the world's young people while bringing them into the decision making process.
While many of the youths expressed dissent and disagreement during the event, they were appreciative of the opportunity to participate in this year's conference, which provided an opportunity for youth to exchange ideas and strategies with a wide variety of activists from diverse backgrounds.
Nigerian youths at the conference advanced their views on the global climate deal and why the youths should be the fulcrum of the adaptation and mitigation efforts.
Goodluck Obi led one group, United Nations of Youth Nigeria Network and Taiwo Adewole, while another, Zero Carbon Africa, represented by Rhoda Robinson and Zaid Shopeju gave insights on their work on tree planting and climate change, respectively.
Carbon Africa, in a presentation, disclosed how they are empowering young people to take action at community level towards enhancing environmental sustainability and ensuring economic and social wellbeing.
The Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, said focusing on youth is important, since the next generation would have to bear the brunt of the effects of climate change in the decades to come.
Along with Figueres, young activists had the chance to talk with Mary Robinson, the former President of Ireland, and Dessima Williams, Grenada's ambassador to the UN.
The format favoured back-and-forth discussion. After a brief introduction, the floor was opened to questions from the youth delegates and panelists were then invited to pose questions to the attendees.
In the boisterous debate that ensued, many youth delegates voiced their criticism of the negotiating process, saying they were frustrated with the pace of change.
Williams noted their criticism and said the blame was simply due to the complexity of getting so many parties to agree on one course of action.
"This is a multilateral process. 190 major entities can't quickly agree. That means we have to listen to each other and understand each other and adjust," she said.
She went on to challenge the attendees to help improve the process themselves, saying: "You, as a generation, can help us design this new paradigm for negotiations.
"It is very inspiring, especially since this is my first COP conference. I haven't been involved in climate (issues) for very long- almost three months- but here I realised that the youth can have more power even than their government," said Chao-Mei Pai, 22, who represents the Taiwan Youth Climate Coalition.
Lizzy Ngwenya, an 18-year-old from Zambia, who is a member of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, said that was precisely the goal of the youth delegation from her country.
"We hope to get ideas from this conference, and, when we go back to Zambia, we hope to implement these ideas," she said.
