On the sidelines of In celebration of World Environment Day 2022, a Youth Love Egypt Foundation organizes and moderates a action hub event at Stockholm +50 Conference held in Sweden with the participation of the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program entitled From Paris to Stockholm to Sharm El Sheikh
Ahmed Fathi: Young people are among the groups most affected by the impacts of climate change, the need to integrate young people into environmental work and the need to listen to their voices
The Youth Love Egypt Foundation, headed by Mr. Ahmed Fathy, organized a action hub event session entitled From Paris to Stockholm to Sharm El-Sheikh. With an active participation of Ms. Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program, Dr. Yasmine Fouad, Minister of Environment, Ms.Johanna Lessinger, Youth Ambassador for the Stockholm Conference, participated as keynote speakers, and Mr.Dane Mcqueen Director and program partnerships COP28 – UEA Climate envoy, Mr.Valdislav kaim Youth Advisor to the UN sectary General on climate change, Dr. Mohamed Abdelraouf, Co-chair of Major Groups and Stakeholders at UNEP, Mr. Xan Northcott global North focal point for YOUNGO, Ms.Natalie Mangodo, Youth Fellow in Finance with UN climate change High level champions team
The event focused on Youth who are agents of change, entrepreneurs and innovators. Young people are not only victims of climate change but also have valuable contributors to climate action. Young people are scaling up their efforts and using their skills to accelerate climate action since the Paris agreement and will continue to do so in Stockholm, Sharm El-sheikh .
This event provides a space for youth voices, demands and concerns as well as action in Stockholm+50, COP 27 and COP28. How Stockholm can contribute to COP27 through having a clear work plan and activities till COP 27 focusing on the 1,5 Degree objective as a goal from the Paris Agreement. The event encourages youth actions towards this goal.
Ms.Inger Andersen the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UNEP made a brief appearance and wished the group well stressing the importance of youth.
Ambassador for youth Stockholm+50 Johanna Lissinger Peitzoutlined how challenging it had been to achieve youth involvement in Stockholm +50. Seeing the way UN rules operate her dream on youth involvement had not been fully realised. The current rules make it difficult to achieve the level of youth involvement she had desired and need to be changed if we are to succeed in this ambition.
She recognised that the system needed to change to bring youth into the formal discussion processes and that this had not happened for Stockholm + 50. A major shift was needed in how multi-lateral agreements were put together to allow an effective youth input.
Dr. Yasmin Fouad Minister of Environment of Egypt has raised some important points with respect to COP27 will focus on implementation, identify real examples of solutions that work, highlight success stories that can be replicated and will give young people hope for the future, focus on support for farmers, fishermen, women; and will provide space for young people.
Mr David McQueen Director and Programme Partner COP28 stressed that they would learn from COP26 and COP27 to ensure that Youth did not feel marginalised by the UN processes. He saw several areas to focus on including effective representation and visibility for youth; a fair finance and support package for youth, a programme to build on the experience of the UAE in setting up Youth Councils where ideas can be discussed before they are formally introduced; and formal youth quotas.
Mr Vladislav Kaimn UN Secretary General's Youth Advisor on Climate Change has referred that Youth representatives were volunteers working on the climate change agenda in addition to their day job. Attending major UN events was stressful and the logistics were incredibly difficult (travel, visas and accommodation), which made it really hard to represent the youth community. More support to attend COP 27 was needed to encourage youth participation
Dr. Mohamed ABDEL Raouf Co-ordinator Major Groups.UNEP declared Major Groups is increasingly engaged in UN processes and support the involvement of youth as they bring energy, fresh thinking and new ideas to UN processes. Youth and Major Groups must play a major role in developing multi-lateral agreements as they will secure our futures. COP27 should be for Africa and it is essential that finance is made available for developing countries to deal with the losses and changes that climate change is imposing. COP27 & 28 are a real chance to change the balance of power (MR).
Where Ms Natalie Mangondo Youth Fellow in Finance UN climate change high level champions team added Young people will be most impacted by climate change and urgently want to see rhetoric turned into action. Young people want to see finance for action targeted at young people in Africa. Young people are told they are really important but this is not reflected in action at the High Level events. Young people would like to see COP27 champion implementation and develop micro finance initiatives for young people
