Click here to read Quinn Runkle’s blog from COP28. Quinn is Director of Education at Students Organising for Sustainability. This is how it begins:
Over the weekend, the SOS-UK team all arrived home from Dubai, having concluded our programme of engagements with the first-ever Children, Youth, Education & Skills Day. We now watch with trepidation as the remaining hours of COP28 focus on difficult negotiations, trying to retain language around phasing out fossil fuels in an effort to limit warming to 1.5C.
Dubai was my second COP and I’ve come away again with the same difficult mix of emotions and reflections…
It is so devastating to see the ever-growing delegation of oil lobbyists, corporations and other actors who have no interest in phasing out fossil fuels. As Amit, our brilliant Mock COP Campaign Coordinator for Europe, said in a workshop he ran at COP: delays to mitigation and inaction on adaptation are direct decisions about who dies from extreme weather events. The gravity of the decisions being made through the negotiation process cannot be underestimated.
And, meanwhile, within this context of ever-worsening headlines and predicted negotiation outcomes, you find yourself surrounded by the most energised, inspiring, diverse and motivated people. Bonded by a common aim to tackle the climate crisis, you are able to dive deeply into solutions-oriented conversations everywhere you go, from the high-level sessions to the grassroots capacity-building workshops to late-night journeys home on the metro. It is an adrenaline-fueled week of exchanging ideas and inspiration, readying us all to hit the ground running in the new year with renewed purpose and focus.
Quinn adds:
Our work throughout our time in Dubai was shaped and informed by the Mock Education Ministers’ Summit outcome document: the first-ever Youth Statement for Quality Climate Education, representing the collective voice of 227 young people from 89 countries brought together this past year. The youth statement sets out key criteria for how youth define quality climate education, which includes things like: embedded across all subjects, solutions and action-oriented, empowering and critical, inclusive and intersectional, and free from conflicts of interest. Events throughout the week convened policy-makers, ministers, youth advocates, and educators. We facilitated capacity building workshops for other young people at COP, discussed what quality climate education actually looks like, and showcased how young people and policymakers have collaborated in-country to progress change. This culminated in a high-level session in which young people presented the Youth Statement for Quality Climate Education and heard responses from ministers about how they can work with young people in-country to progress its outcomes.
And there’s much more …