Hi! Welcome to my blog, a young person’s perspective on the Copenhagen climate conference. I’ll be posting here throughout the two weeks of United Nations talks, which start tomorrow (Monday) and last until Friday 18th December.
Stories in the news about climate change can all get a bit baffling - for two reasons:
1) The changes happening to our climate, weather patterns, and the range of life on Earth, are pretty complicated. It’s hard enough trying to get a hold on what’s happening right now, let alone predict what’s going to happen in 10, 20 or 100 years’ time.
2) People are complicated too! Perhaps even more complicated than the climate. We’ve arranged ourselves into different countries with different needs and wants. What’s more, each country is made up of many different groups of people who don’t necessarily have the same needs and wants either.
So bringing together all the countries of the world for a humongous meeting to sort out climate change is not going to be simple. And it doesn’t help that when people talk about science or politics, they start speaking what seems like a whole new language of science-speak and politics-speak that can often be difficult for people like me and you to understand.
On this blog, I’m going to be updating you on what’s going on. I’ll be using information from the world’s media, the UK’s official negotiating team, and from friends of mine in the UK Youth Delegation who are in Copenhagen as I write, working with young people from across the globe to hold our governments to account.
Why do I think a young person’s perspective is important? Firstly, we are the people alive today who will feel most the impacts of decisions made at Copenhagen. This is because the carbon emissions we emit today have impacts in years to come. The changes in the Earth’s climate that we are seeing now, are due to people years ago burning fossil fuels. This means that the people in suits negotiating in Copenhagen won’t be around to see the impacts of their decisions - but we, young people, will.
Secondly, the language used by politicians and scientists and the media can often exclude young people from the debate because it is so darn confusing. Hopefully, this blog will be easier to understand (please do tell me if anything doesn’t make sense) - so you can get debating with your friends and family!
