Towards Raising an Environmentally-conscious Generation in India 

1.0 The Background

The importance of educating our children and youth in ensuring a sustainable future for all of us cannot be stressed enough. How else is a future generation of informed, aware, and environmentally-conscious citizens to be created if not through effective educational tools for our children and youth? The Indian Constitution states that it is the responsibility of every citizen to protect the environment. Underscoring the importance of environmental education, in 2003, a Supreme Court judgement made the teaching of environmental studies mandatory for all levels of formal education. Promoting environmental educational tools on a larger platform, in its 57th meeting in December 2002, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, 2005- 2014  (DESD) 'emphasising that education is an indispensable element for achieving sustainable development'.

Placed in this context, Centre for Environment Communication has been consistently designing and conducting innovative environmental communication programmes employing various media such as films, on-ground communication, live demonstrations, interactive modules,  communication via print and social media etc. These seminal programmes promote behaviour change in children and youth towards environmental sustainability via CEC’s five thematic centres.

2.0 Communicating Environment to Children

Children are naturally curious. They are forever full of the what, why, when, where and how of the world around them as most things are a new experience for them. But living as we are in cities where the connect with Nature is limited and oftentimes, children see nothing of it, their curiosity about Nature is stunted. Since they see little of it, they question little and consequently, understand even less about the how our natural ecosystem and our very existence are intertwined. Therefore, there is a need to create for them situations where they can feel the natural experiences in a tactile and emotive way, in a way that their curiosity is piqued. That will be the doorway to establishing a life-long connects with Nature. So, how is this curiosity about Nature to be piqued in the midst of the urban jungle?

3.0 Using Films as a Tool for ESD

CEC believes, based on its multiple experiences, that effectively employing evocative Nature films is a very powerful and impactful tool for ESD. Children are quick to grasp a situation and are able to very quickly think through and work towards solutions. So introducing them to the infinite wonders of nature via films, and thus leading them on to understand the environmental challenges today are a sure way of nurturing environmentally-conscious future citizens.

Films are the most impactful audio-visual medium that sends subliminal messages while creating the atmosphere wherein all senses are immersed in the experience, eliciting an emotional response. A film is thus a magical tool to raise eco-awareness in children. It captures stark realities in a manner that jolts us out of our sense of complacency. The series of film festivals organised by CEC has shown that there is perhaps no better way than films to impress upon our children that “environment” is not a “boring” subject but an interactive living eco-system that responds to our participation in ways that we can touch and see, every day.

CEC has organised a series of film festivals across schools and institutions for children and youth in Delhi and NCR, engaging more than 2000 children and youth in its various events and ongoing programmes. It has also launched its flagship programme, Green Buddies Film Festival, to engage children and youth on a sustained basis towards positive environmental action on a larger platform. 

4.0 CEC Initiatives employing Films as ESD Tools: In Brief

 I. Green Hub Festival 2016 Celebrating Northeast

Presented by: North East Network, Dusty Foot Production, and Centre for Environment Communication

Date: May 13-15, 2016

Venue: Green Hub, Jonak, Kumargaon, Tezpur, Assam

ACTIVITIES:

Films & Makers; Anthology of Shots; In Conversation; Expert Talks & Discussions; Musical Nite & Delightful Cuisine

Films being screened: Manas - Return of the Giants; Walking with the Wolves; Multiple Screening of Films by Green Hub Fellows from different parts of the Northeast.

II. THE ELEPHANT FESTIVAL – Celebrating World Wildlife Day, March 3, 2016

Participants: Children and youth from Prayas Juvenile Aid Centre, Tughlakabad and all its centres in Delhi; PVR Nest: NGO Vidya Foundation

Organised by: Centre for Environment Communication (CEC), Prayas Institute for Juvenile Justice and Adoptionscentrum

Partners: The Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival, The International Elephant Film Festival, PVR Nest, Green Future Foundation, Wildlife SOS and Magic Bus; in association with United Nations and CITES to celebrate the World Wildlife Day, March 3, 2016.

Activities: Film screenings; interactive workshop; Quiz and painting competition; Animal Pictionary; On the spot skit presentation on festival theme.

Films screened - 6: The Jungle Gang meets the Elephant by Krishnendu Bose; Elephant Talk 2015: Asian Elephants in the Wild; Elephants Never Forget; On the Right Track, and Living with Giants.

Workshop theme: Understanding the role of the Elephant in the eco-system; Conserving the Elephant: Challenges and solutions

Skit theme: Act for the Elephant

III. CEC CLIMATECONNECT Film Festival in Delhi and NCR

Classes: VII, VIII, IX, X and XI

No. of Activities: 10

Participating Schools: TSMS Faridabad, Lotus Valley School Noida, DPS Gautam Buddh Nagar and Tagore International School

Activities: Film screening/Session with Filmmakers, Interactive Panel Discussions, Expert Talks, A Reality Show, A Climate Change presentation by children of invited schools (one speaker per school – 5 minutes only), A filmmaking competition, a photo exhibition, An Al Gore presentation, A Snake and Ladder Climate Change Game, A Solar Power Cooker Live Demonstration.

Films Screened: Melting Paradise by Vijay Bedi, The Final Tide by Vikram Mishra, Carbon Merchants by Aaradhana Kohli Kapur and Shelter

Expert Talk and Discussion Topics

• Impact on Earth of a One-Degree Rise in Temperature
• Climate Change: Political Discourses
• Climate Change and Me: How I Am Connected to Climate Change

IV. CLIMA FILM FEST

Partners: United Nations Foundation, Good Relations India, Panos South Asia, CPREEC and M.O.P. Vaishnav College and Ennovate Global - CEC partner

In the run-up to the Secretary General Climate Summit at UN headquarters on September 23, Clima Film Fest ‘14 aimed at creating maximum buzz about the impacts of climate change on our lives. The objective of the festival was to tell people through the medium of films and discourses with the experts about what exactly is climate change, how it is impacting our lives and how one can adapt to it. The festival was also very important in the context of the recent release of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Reports. A collection of compelling stories across India, highlighting evidences of the real impacts of and adaptations to climate change, underscored the spectacular festival. 

Issues Explored

1. Impact of climate change on natural resource-based livelihood in rural India.
2. Climate change and rising sea levels in the Sunderbans.
3. Local climate change impacts in Sunderbans in a participatory video.
4. Landfill gas cleaning and flaring technology.
5. India: Towards a clean and energy-efficient economy.
6. Reducing Emissions from deforestation and degradation.
7. Clean and energy-efficient technology for the small-scale glass industry.
8. Govt-citizen partnership for sustainable cities.
9. Towards sustainable habitats by using depleting natural resources to the benefits of all.
10. Artificial glaciers to beat the drought in high-altitude areas.
11. Impact on Earth of a one-degree rise in temperature.
12. Small scale sustainable renewable energy programmes.
13. Conservation of precious water resources such as wetlands.
14. The ground reality of climate change and the global scenario.

Expert Discussion Session Topics

• Climate Change and the Coasts
• Communicating Climate Change: A Panel Discussion on Climate Change and Media
• Adaptation to Climate Change for the State of Tamil Nadu
• Climate Change and Chennai City

Films Screened

Missing, Where is my Home and The Forest Beautiful by Krishnendu Bose; are we ready to dig in by Saransh Sugandh; Negotiating Justice and Tales Of Gorakhpur: Path Towards A Climate-Resilient Future by Rishu Nigam; Redemption - A Redd + Story From India by Ahona Dutta Gupta; Ring The Changes by Kanishka Singh; Breathe Easy by Aditi Banerjee; Building For A Greener World by Rita Banerji; Ladakh's Artificial Glaciers by Rajendra Srivathsa Kondapalli; Strange Days On Planet Earth - The One Degree Factor by Rob Whittlesey; Lighter Burden, Brighter Future by Sanjay Barnela; Melting Paradise Ajay and Vijay Bedi; Mean Sea Level and Don’t Cut My Head Off  by Pradip Saha

V. COMING SOON: CEC FLAGSHIP INITIATIVE - GREEN BUDDIES FILM FESTIVAL

Green Buddies Film Festival is India’s first niche green film festival exclusively for children and youth. It is a unique green festival which provides a stage for the voices of children and youth to be heard on the subject of the environment. For those who are already “green buddies” with the environment, this festival will be a unique opportunity to showcase their efforts via films and other environmental communication tools and formats; for those who are yet to understand the importance of conserving the environment, the festival will be an awakening, an initiation into the subject. The festival is an exclusive Flagship Initiative of the Centre for Environment Communication (CEC).

5.0 About Centre for Environment Communication (CEC)

Centre for Environment Communication (CEC) is committed to raising awareness among children, youth, and adults proactively on environmental issues and promoting action to concretise the awareness. Through a consistent and sustained call for awareness and action, CEC aims to gradually engender behaviour change, at large, towards the environment and make its conservation a part of our daily concerns towards creating a good life. CEC has partnered with UNICEF, DELHI GOVERNMENT, JACKSON HOLE WILDLIFE FILM FESTIVAL, PVR NEST for its various projects. CEC also received support from leading environmental organisations such as Climate Reality and Connect4Climate, University of Stirling, the UK for its various programmes.

Mission: Communicating for Creating Sustainable Societies

Thematic Centres: CEC has established five thematic centres: Climate Change Communication Centre (C4); Biodiversity Communication Centre (BCC); Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Communication Centre (WASHCC); Green Films Centre (GFC), and Corporate Employees Engagement Centre (CEEC)} which strategically spotlight its primary areas of engagement. The Centres seek to influence social, economic and instrumental change on environmental issues at the level of the society and consequently, catalyse appropriate policy interventions by the government.

Collective efforts for far-reaching changes (climate change) are possible and realistic should politicians choose to listen to the voice of their young people.

Students at New Delhi at another interaction with  with Prof Mathew Hibberd

The 22nd United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties, COP22 marks the 22nd yearly session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21). Post the historic CoP21 held in Paris on November 30, 2015, India became the 62nd country to ratify the Paris deal with 14 more countries committing to ratify the deal before the end of 2016. With the ratification, “India has to implement an array of standards in its energy production and emission monitoring. India had also linked the ratification of the treaty to its admission to the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Getting the agreement implemented is a key strategic objective that President Barack Obama has set for himself before he leaves office in less than four months.” (The Hindu, October 2, 2016).

Against such a backdrop, as the world waits for the ratification from other countries so that the Agreement meets the need of slightly more than 3 percentage points to reach the 55 per cent threshold, it is pertinent to ask where does youth stand, against such a backdrop, in their understanding and perception of the climate issues. Our study, “ClimateAction: Youth Voices – A Four Nation Report” conducted across four nations, two Asian and two European — India, Vietnam, Italy and the UK — by the University of Stirling, Scotland and Centre for Environment Communication, New Delhi brings into sharp focus the pressing need to engage the youth into climate change talks to understand and platform their ideas, expectations and solutions to a cleaner climate.

The now worldwide Divestment Campaign is a powerful example of youth action for a clean climate. The divestment campaign which began on US college campuses in 2011 slowly grew into a nationwide divestment campaign with more than 400 US colleges and universities joining in. To quote the Guardian: “The speed at which the fossil fuel divestment campaign is growing seems to have rattled its opponents in the coal and oil lobbies.” So why not involve more and more youth to create a cleaner climate? What do the young people across the four nations involved in our study think about climate change?

Students at New Delhi interact with Prof Mathew Hibberd

The ClimateAction: Youth Voices – Four Nation Report finds out that today’s youth believes they will inherit a deteriorating environmental situation from older generations, with some arguing that the young generation will be required to pay a greater price for profligacy of earlier generations. There was, however, uneven knowledge of key events relating to climate change. For example, some of our focus group members had not heard about the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (CoP) in Paris in November 2015. Only a small minority of focus group participants were actively involved in climate change campaigns. There was clear support for focus group findings that young people lack resources to take effective action; do not practice daily rituals that might be more eco-friendly; and that the lack of immediacy means that relevance of climate change to daily lives remains low.

An international binding agreement was considered vital in tackling key ecological problems of the 21st century. But many argued that when it comes to action there is still a lack of political will relating to the enforcement of climate change agreements. Youth from Europe and Asia remain pessimistic to the international community’s ability to implement such an agreement.

Youth look to definitive leadership and institutional support as a key ongoing requirement for climate change and look to local, national and international institutions, public and private, to provide that the stewardship and, crucially, the funding for infrastructural projects and services that can affect real environmental change. Their viewpoint came with the expectation of a substantive and viable solution at Paris, the absence of which, they said, would not only have a disastrous impact on environmental issues but would also undermine key social problems which, to their minds, have been worsened by climate change. One problem highlighted was the issue of migration where participants see a direct and causal link between mass movements of people, crop failure, extreme weather and climate change. Another pertinent issue was that of ‘free riders’ — those who seek to evade responsibility for climate change whether they are individuals or nations. Climate change is a collective issue requiring societal solutions that go beyond individual involvement.

The world’s poorest are seen to be disproportionately affected by climate change. This, paradoxically, lessens the importance of climate change among some, especially in India and Vietnam, as fighting poverty remains the key issue. There was strong support across focus groups for advanced national economies in the West, the USA, Canada, Europe, etc., to support the developing countries through financial or technical support in adopting climate change initiatives. While the UN was seen to be a key mediator in coming to a successful climate agreement, yet the dependence of its decision on the unanimity among its five permanent members — China, France, Russia, UK and USA — was seen to somewhat weaken its authority.

Youth across the four nations have come to believe that all the major institutions of our modern societies have largely failed to engage them in climate change issues, let alone to motivate and mobilise them into changing their behaviours towards more climate-conscious lifestyles. One of the prominent problems identified in this research is that common visions or mutual understandings of climate change have remained difficult to execute properly, whether one looks at international agreements or initiatives in affecting behavioural change.

It should be noted, however, that the cause for audience skepticism and pessimism found in this research is not simply due to the failure of the major institutions involved in the tackling of climate change. The story is, arguably, far more complex than lack of relevancy or a perceived lack of leadership or green-washing and so on. It relates more to deep-seated social vacuum at the macro and micro level in societies. Many people view climate change messages through ideological or social frameworks in line with their nationality, political beliefs, socio-demographic data – age (of especial importance for this study), gender, class, ethnicity, location, peer group, and so on. Climate change is tied closely to vaguer and contested notions of national, regional and local identities, cultural meanings and values and audience dissemination of texts and images. As such, climate change communications stretch beyond the realm of science, government policy and targets. As the Alliance of Religion and Conservation argues:

The emphasis on consumption, economics and policy usually fails to engage people at any deep level because it does not address the narrative, the mythological, the metaphorical or the existence of memories of past disasters and the way out (quoted in Hulme, 2009: 356).

Climate change communications, in other words, might generate much stronger impacts in communities if they speak to the reality of people’s life in a subtle, more “naturalised” way. The agreement at the Paris CoP needs to be ratified and enforced in ways that different people can understand and adopt. Key to this process are the leading industrialised countries and the leading developing nations such as BRICS. Special hope has been placed in President Obama to lead the USA and help secure success thus reinforcing his legacy as a forward-looking and progressive democratic president.

While young people are hopeful of the Paris Agreement being successfully ratified and implemented, they are also realistic enough to understand that all countries need to make major changes and sacrifices in order to help secure a better chance of limiting the damaging and pernicious impacts of climate change. Collective efforts for far-reaching changes are possible and realistic should politicians choose to listen to the voice of their young people.   

Greater cooperation through carbon trading could reduce the cost of climate change mitigation by 32 percent by 2030, according to a new World Bank report released today at an international carbon event in Vietnam. 

New modelling analysis undertaken for the State and Trends of Carbon Pricing 2016 report shows that increased international carbon trading could enable large-scale emissions reductions at much lower cost than at present, based on the carbon mitigation goals spelled out in countries’ national climate plans under the Paris Agreement -- the Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs.  By the middle of the century, an international market has the potential to reduce global mitigation costs by more than 50 percent.  

The goal of limiting emission reductions to meet a 2°C or lower target will be difficult to achieve cost-efficiently without more carbon trading, according to the report, prepared by the World Bank and launched at the 15th Assembly of the Partnership for Market Readiness.

“The more we cooperate through carbon trading, the larger the savings and the greater the potential to increase ambition by countries in the short term,” said John Roome, Senior Director for Climate Change at the World Bank. “To be effective, carbon pricing policies must be coordinated with other energy and environmental policies –this will require collaboration within and between countries.”

The Paris Agreement, reached at COP21 in late 2015, sets up a framework for global cooperation through carbon markets. Over 100 countries consider carbon pricing initiatives as part of their NDCs, through emissions trading within or across borders, international crediting, carbon taxation and other measures.

Under this new cooperative framework, one country can benefit from mitigation activities resulting in emission reductions in another country to fulfill its NDC. The report indicates that financial flows of 2–5 percent of gross domestic product in countries with lower-cost mitigation activities could be realized for investments that will reduce emissions by 2050.

The report also shows that momentum on carbon pricing has continued to grow. In 2016, 40 national jurisdictions and over 20 cities, states, and regions are putting a price on carbon, including seven out of 10 of the world’s largest economies. The coverage of carbon pricing initiatives on global emissions has increased threefold over the past decade, translating to the equivalent of around 7 gigatons of carbon dioxide (GtCO2e), or about 13 percent of global GHG emissions. In addition, governments raised about US$26 billion in revenues from carbon pricing initiatives in 2015. This represents a 60 percent increase compared to the revenues raised in 2014.

This year saw the launch of two new carbon pricing initiatives: British Columbia put a price on emissions from liquefied natural gas plants alongside its carbon tax, and Australia implemented a safeguard mechanism to the Emissions Reduction Fund, requiring large emitters that exceed their set limit to offset excess emissions.

Looking ahead, next year could see the largest ever increase in the share of global emissions covered by carbon pricing initiatives in a single year. If the Chinese national Emissions Trading System (ETS) is implemented in 2017 as planned, it would become the largest carbon pricing initiative in the world, surpassing the EU ETS. Initial estimates show that emissions covered by carbon pricing initiatives could increase from 13 percent to between 20 and 25 percent of global GHG emissions.

In April, the High Level Panel on Carbon Pricing called upon the international community to double the percentage of global emissions covered by explicit carbon prices to 25% by 2020 and to double it again to 50% within a decade. Heads of State from Canada, Chile, Ethiopia, France, Germany and Mexico are among the leaders calling for this increased commitment. 

The report was prepared with the technical support of Ecofys and Vivid Economics.

To download the full report, visit https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/25160

This post was originally posted here.

Humans' appetite for gnawing away at the fabric of the Earth itself is growing prodigiously. According to a new UN report, the amount of the planet's natural resources extracted for human use has tripled in 40 years.

A report produced by the International Resource Panel (IRP), part of the UN Environment Programme, says rising consumption driven by a growing middle class has seen resources extraction increase from 22 billion tons in 1970 to 70 billon tons in 2010.

It refers to natural resources as primary materials and includes under this heading biomass, fossil fuels, metal ores and non-metallic minerals.

The increase in their use, the report warns, will ultimately deplete the availability of natural resources—causing serious shortages of critical materials and risking conflict.

Growing primary material consumption will affect climate change mainly because of the large amounts of energy involved in extraction, use, transport and disposal.

Irreversibly Depleted

"The alarming rate at which materials are now being extracted is already having a severe impact on human health and people's quality of life," said the IRP's co-chair, Alicia Bárcena Ibarra.

"We urgently need to address this problem before we have irreversibly depleted the resources that power our economies and lift people out of poverty. This deeply complex problem, one of humanity's biggest tests yet, calls for a rethink of the governance of natural resource extraction."

The IRP says the information contained in the new report supports the monitoring of the progress countries are making towards achieving the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. It also shows the uneven way in which the materials exploited are shared.

The richest countries consume on average 10 times as much of the available resources as the poorest and twice as much as the world average.

This total—almost three times today's amount—will probably increase the acidification of the world's waters, the eutrophication of its soils and waters, worsen soil erosion and lead to greater amounts of waste and pollution.

The report also ranks countries by the size of their per capita material footprints—the amount of material required in a country, an indicator that sheds light on its true impact on the global natural resource base. It is also a good way to judge a country's material standard of living.

Europe and North America, which had annual per capita material footprints of 20 and 25 tons in 2010, are at the top of the table. China's footprint was 14 tons and Brazil's 13. The annual per-capita material footprint for Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean and West Asia was 9-10 tons, and Africa's was below 3 tons.

Unprecedented Amounts

Global material use has rapidly accelerated since 2000, the report says, as emerging economies such as China undergo industrial and urban transformation that requires unprecedented amounts of iron, steel, cement, energy and building materials.

Compounding the problems, there has been little improvement in global material efficiency since 1990. The global economy now needs more material per unit of GDP than it did at the turn of the century, the IRP says, because production has moved from material-efficient economies such as Japan, South Korea and Europe to far less materially-efficient countries such as China, India and some in south-east Asia.

The report says uncoupling the increasing material use from economic growth is the "imperative of modern environmental policy and essential for the prosperity of human society and a healthy natural environment."

This will require investment in research and development, combined with better public policy and financing, creating opportunities for sustained economic growth and job creation.

The IRP also recommends putting a price on primary materials at extraction to reflect the social and environmental costs of resource extraction and use, while reducing consumption. The extra funds generated, it says, could then be invested in R&D in resource-intensive sectors of the economy.

It is concerned that the expanding demand for materials that low-income countries are likely to experience could contribute to local conflicts such as those seen in areas where mining competes with agriculture and urban development.

This article was originally posted on EcoWatch.

The Arctic—home to diverse wildlife and many cultures—is changing faster than any other part of the planet in the face of climate change. Melting sea ice is already contributing to rising ocean levels worldwide and opening up new areas of the ocean for risky oil drilling. And polar bears, which depend on that ice to hunt seals, rest, and breed, are now more vulnerable than ever.

The Columbia Climate Center, in partnership with WWF and Arctic 21, published a new report that asks experts to consider the effects on the Arctic in light of an international agreement that aims to limit climate change to between 1.5° and less than 2° s C. Unfortunately for the Arctic, even that limited increase could mean a change of roughly 4°C and even up to 5°C.

Already, the changes are impacting not only Arctic residents, but billions of people living in other parts of the world.

But there’s still time left to help the Arctic and the impacts of climate change. Ultimately, experts agreed on five important ways we can take action:

1. We need to fund research to help us all better understand what the Arctic might look like in the near future. That research should prepare us for multiple scenarios.

2. We need to develop technology to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Once we find out what works, that technology should be put to work immediately and on a large-scale.

3. We need to immediately help people who live in the Arctic to adapt, which may include relocating communities. Right now there’s little policy and infrastructure to help these people adapt so they’re going it alone.

4. We need to give scientists the tools to help us effectively understand and adapt to a changing Arctic. We should support an emerging pan-Arctic observing system, along with early warning components and development of Arctic system models to track Arctic change.

5. We need to create a unified voice for Arctic action with continued global talks and decision-making, especially when that work is forward-looking.

When the White House hosted the first ever Arctic Science Ministerial, leaders from around the world agreed to work collaboratively. Keeping that commitment will be important. The Arctic needs the best in science to create the most effective policy, and no one is going to be able to do it alone.

This blog post was originally posted here.

At age 13, I participated in civil rights marches and other activities. A few years later I was also active in anti-war marches and events. By the time I was 16, I helped lead a protest at my high school, which ended with a ceremonial tree-planting on the first Earth Day in 1970. I was fortunate because my family supported and encouraged my activism, as they have throughout my career.

As I look toward our planet’s future, I reflect on numerous examples from our past, in which young generations not only helped lead, but also provided the main spark that forced older decision-makers to push through change. The 1960s and ’70s in the U.S. are one big example. The Berliners tearing down the wall in 1989 is another. The Arab Spring in 2010/11 changed that corner of the world forever. And more recently, the rise of 350.org and its mass mobilization of young people, which included the People’s Climate March in New York in 2014, is a big new force in the fight to address climate change.

William Lopii, a herdsman and educator in Lorengelup, Kenya. Photo credit: Joe Lukhovi

It’s clear that if we want change, we need to not only watch and listen to young people, but also embrace and support them to help create the change our planet needs. If the leaders at COP21 in Paris don’t get this message, they are simply missing the boat.

That’s why Global Greengrants Fund is partnering with 350.org to provide grants and assistance to international youth groups that are working to fight and address the impacts of climate change in their communities. In addition to Global Greengrants Fund’s normal granting—which has provided$45 million to grassroots and indigenous groups in 165 countries over the last 20 years—we are now in the process of granting out $475,000 specifically to grassroots and frontline youth groups so they can mobilize the climate movement in the lead-up to Paris. This grantmaking strategy is being directed by the youth climate organizers who make up our Next Generation Climate Boardand 350.org's global network of campaigners.

Young grantees are often from marginalized or indigenous communities that are already being impacted by climate change and stand to be devastated as the chaos worsens. They need to be given more opportunities to tell their stories and lead. Developing and empowering their voices isn’t just a good idea—it’s a necessity.

Ekai Nabenyo educates villagers about climate change, Lorengelup, Kenya. Photo credit: Joe Lukhovi

When we started searching around the world to find youth leaders and groups to fund with our grants, we were amazed at the work that was already moving forward that we were able to support. Young people from Peru to Malawi already had structures in place to address the impacts of climate change in their communities. Here’s the “#YouthOnClimate” campaign that Global Greengrants and 350.org have put together:

- We’re making grants to groups in Africa, Asia, Latin America and beyond.
- We’ve put together a series of videos to help amplify emblematic young voices in Kenya, the Philippines and Ecuador.

[video: https://youtu.be/RoiMU1C2u6U]

- Our Call2Action focuses on mobilizing youth around COP21 to engage in civil action in their local communities.
- We will have a contingent of youth voices at events in Paris for COP21.
- We and others are moving “Through Paris,” not “To Paris,” to make sure these young people have the tools and resources needed to take the movement beyond Paris and back into their communities.

I’ve traveled around the world and met with dozens and dozens of local environmental groups and leaders. Young people, women, indigenous people and people from countries in the Global South hold a key to the solution of climate change. These groups bring a badly needed perspective, whether it is deep respect for the Earth, concern for the future or new ideas and tactics.

Climate change is imperiling our youth, and so we are empowering our youth to fight it.
 

This blog post was originally posted on Ecowatch.​