According to UN reports, there are 3.5 billion people under 30 living on the planet, that makes half of the population. 1.8 billion people are adolescents or early adults, ranging from the age of 15 to 24. Half of all youth reside in the developing countries. Our world has never seen so many young people. Following the international saying, “children are the future”, then, youth is the present. Apart from being the most well-educated generation in all history, with the highest numbers when it comes to literacy, entrepreneurship, social engagement, etc., young people, regardless of their nationality, face one common problem: Climate Change.
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| “If we let them, young people will be the world’s most powerful solution.” — Denise Dunning |
As stated by the Stockholm Resilience Center (SRC), a Swedish research center focused in socio-environmental resilience, climate change along with other major problems account for the 9 Planetary Boundaries — a group of quantitative planetary boundaries within which humanity can continue to develop and thrive for generations to come. Crossing these boundaries increases the risk of generating large-scale abrupt or irreversible environmental changes. The bad news is: we are crossing the threshold faster than what we thought. Recent evidence published by the SRC show that we have reached a point at which the loss of summer polar sea-ice is almost certainly irreversible. Sea level rise is a growing concern, especially for small islands nations, like Fiji, Maldives, or Tuvalu. The latest IPCC reports indicate that we are not on track to reach the 2ºC goal agreed upon the Paris Agreement. Youth is and will be directly affected by all the changes that happen in the environment. That makes it the perfect group to take the lead towards developing solutions to tackle Climate Change.
Read the story from Medium by Thales Dantas - “Role of Young People in the Fight Against Climate Change.”
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