by BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — Young people attending the United Nations climate talks have plenty to be angry about. They have lost loved ones and months of school. They have lost homes and family farms as well as connections to their families’ homeland.
However, they have not lost hope. Not yet.
“It’s become so tiring for me to just be a figurehead,” said Marinel Ubaldo, who at age 16 watched two consecutive super-sized typhoons devastate entire communities in her native Philippines. Missing part of high school afterward because there was no school to return to was a wake-up call. This is now the 27-year-old’s sixth time at COP29, taking part in the summit where heads of state and government negotiate the future she will inherit.
“I guess I’m very pessimistic, but I’m hopeful that this COP could actually bring more clarity,” she said.
Your pessimism is not unfounded. There were fewer heads of state and government in attendance this year amid uncertainty as political will on climate wanes in major countries such as the US and Germany. While many passionate youth want to protest, this will be the third consecutive COP in an authoritarian country where protests and speech are more tightly controlled. And for many of the young people most affected by climate extremes, traveling to the conference is simply difficult and expensive.
“We face the constant challenge of sometimes setting up youth forums with rooms on the edge of decision-making rooms,” said Felipe Paullier, assistant secretary-general for youth affairs at the United Nations Youth Office. That’s why the UN is working to institutionalize the role of youth in climate negotiations, he said.
And climate change is having a disproportionate impact on children around the world. Their growing bodies are having a harder time coping with extreme heat, which is also leading to an increase in premature births and child malnutrition, said UNICEF Deputy Secretary-General Kitty van der Heijden.
“We simply don’t do good enough for the children in this world. We are failing children,” she said.
All of this means that young people are feeling the burden more than ever to speak out on the issue of climate change. And many of those who come to the COP, and even some of those who don’t, said they felt tired – burdened by the knowledge that they show up to speak year after year and don’t have much to show for it. This was the third year in a row that the Earth’s predicted warming has not improved.
“I think for a lot of young people from particularly climate-vulnerable countries it doesn’t actually seem like much of a choice” to speak out about climate change, said 20-year-old Fathimath Raaia Shareef from the Maldives.
Shareef’s grandmother migrated south to the small island nation’s capital, so she never had the opportunity to experience her family’s home island. Growing up, after learning about sea level rise, she had recurring nightmares about her island sinking. She would wake up crying.
“How am I supposed to concentrate on anything else when my island, my homeland, is in danger?” she asked.
It is this focus that brings many young people to the table, even as they question their belief in the possibility that international negotiations can bring about real change. Here at his fourth COP, 15-year-old Francisco Vera Manzanares from Colombia called the UN summit a necessary but “very difficult space.” He believes the slow pace of change in countries around the world is creating a “crisis of credibility” for the institutions most needed to keep within reach the goals that require global cooperation.
“People listen to the children. But let’s just say listening is different than hearing,” he said.
That’s why he hopes more adults will help children meaningfully advocate for themselves in a crisis where they have the most to lose — and the most to save.
“They are our rights. It is our future. It’s our gift,” he said.
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Follow Melina Walling on X, formerly Twitter, @MelinaWalling.
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