GLOBAL YOUTH CONFERENCE
Climate Change and Sustainable Development
8 -11 NOVEMBER 2010
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
Conference Aim
The conference aims to send a clear and unequivocal message to negotiators at Cancun that young people expect the planet’s protection be placed ahead of all other interests in order to reverse the worst effects of climate change in the short-term and ensure long-term sustainable development.
Overview
This conference is merely the beginning of a process that will engage youth in national dialogue on the environmental issues that affect them and their communities, which will in turn be shared with partners on the international stage with the aim of seeking global solutions to what are global problems. The first phase will develop over a five year period leading up to a powerful youth gathering in Geneva in 2015 to provide reflection on the success or otherwise of current strategies and ideas for charting future strategies.
The conference will provide young people with the opportunity and space to discuss climate change and its implications for sustainable development with a range of invited experts and peers. By creating an informal but stimulating space for discussion the conference will encourage open and candid debate on the challenges that currently face humanity and the imperative need for active response.
A variety of participatory learning approaches and techniques will be deployed to encourage participants to engage with confidence and conviction in a range of workshop debates. An internet forum will facilitate contact and discussion between participants before, during and after the conference. There will be a live video stream of the plenary sessions and videos of all keynote speaker presentations. Messages from the delegates at the youth conference will be collected and show-cased on the internet.
Geneva is the ideal location for such an event, being a truly international city with a strong representation of United Nations agencies and other international organisations.
Objectives
- Increase awareness of various phenomena occurring as a consequence of climate change, sharing experiences of how these affect real lives and the future challenges they pose.
- Explore ideas on how to move towards a peaceful and sustainable, low-carbon development pathway, based on the principles of equity and justice.
- Enable youth to engage in framing recommendations to be presented to key climate negotiators and policymakers to voice their demands for action at the COP 16 meeting in Cancun, Mexico, and future UNFCCC meetings.
- Strengthen cooperation, collaboration and friendship amongst youth from around the world thereby empowering them to work both nationally and internationally with their peers to develop solutions for global issues.
About the Earth Focus Foundation
From a global concept to local projects - innovative educational tools to better understand sustainable development.
The Earth Focus Foundation is a Swiss foundation based in Geneva, working to empower young people to take on leadership and advocacy roles in which they actively create a more equitable and sustainable world. Earth Focus provides a platform to encourage them to express their views on the environment and global solutions to ecological problems and serves as a voice to promote these views to decision-makers as well as the public.
The Foundation aims to help young people understand the beauties and limits of the world in which they live and to encourage them to act and share their experience and feelings, with other communities.
At this critical time for the climate change agenda, the Earth Focus Foundation has launched the first of what will become an annual Global Youth Conference, with the aim of raising awareness amongst young people of the challenges of climate change and providing them an opportunity to have their voices heard and join millions of others in a global youth climate movement.