In late November, the national founding summit of the Australian Youth Climate Change Coalition took place in Melbourne. 65 young people aged 15-30 attended, representing 30 different youth and youth-friendly organisations.Sixty young people representing thirty-five organisations met to develop a joint approach to climate change, to ensure that government takes the issue seriously, rather than just making vague statements, launching token projects, and backing off from real action.
Conference organiser, Anna Rose, 23, said today that, "Global warming is the biggest threat my generation faces. We’ve come together here in Melbourne to create strategies to communicate the concerns we have to politicians and business to make sure they actually take some serious action before its too late”.
“Australia must sign Kyoto and commit to legally binding carbon emission reduction targets, rather than distractions like nuclear, geosequestration and ‘clean coal’. The fossilised government needs to invest in our future through renewable energy.”
Some of the diverse range of young people attending include students, representatives of local youth councils, environment groups, youth media makers, and young business professionals from every state.
"This summit aims to bring together youth representatives who care about climate change to make climate a mainstream issue for young people and send a message to governments that we aren’t impressed with rhetoric - we want change, and we want it now”, stated Simon Sheikh from the United Nations Youth Association.
The coalition organising the event are the Australian Student Environment Centre, GetUp!, United Nations Youth Association and OzGreen. The youth declaration drafted at the summit will be released on the official launch date of the coalition – World Kyoto Day, Feb 16th 2007 – once it has received organisational assent from the groups at the summit.
The five action priorities decided upon by the coalition are: (1) organising youth climate conferences; (2) a national day of youth mobilisation on climate change; (3) a schools and Universities strategy (such as expanding ASEN’s existing campus climate challenge); (4) an elections strategy (eg mobilising young people to enrol to vote and vote for climate-friendly candidates); (5) a ‘making caring about climate change cool’ pop culture campaign to educate and mobilise youth on the issue.
Stay tuned for the official launch of the coalition on Feb 16th, 2007!
Media inquiries contact Anna Rose at climate.coalition@gmail.com
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