Act Now For Tomorrow

In June 2015, under the rubric of the Voices of Youth platform (see Related Summaries, below), UNICEF issued an appeal to young people to contribute to the realisation of an international climatic mapping cartography. Visitors to the Act Now For Tomorrow website in English or French can take a virtual trip to 9 countries around the world where they can scroll to discover the effects of climate change in each locale (customised with music, voices of passerby, and scenery characteristic of each place). To gather this information, participating young people go on a spotting mission to discover an environmental issue, such as illegal dumping in Guatemala, sudden floods in Ireland, deforestation in Chad, a lane deteriorated by water run-off in Niger, cutting of trees for charcoal in Zambia, and so on. They then use their smartphones to map the situation (through photos and videos), talk with community members, report their findings, and take part in presentations of the digital reporting. Click here (and search elsewhere on YouTube) to view a playlist of some of the videos young people have produced as part of Act Now For Tomorrow.

Act Now For Tomorrow also had a youth presence at the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), or COP21, in Paris, France, in December 2015. Dozens of climate projects were showcased over a period of two weeks. Seven UNICEF youth ambassadors travelled from all corners of the globe to attend COP21, display their findings, and exchange stories."They see all the contributions from other young people," explained Zayn Abaakil, a UNICEF child engagement coordinator, and "they understand that the issue is a global one, that they are all connected around the same problem, but also learn from each other, look at the best practices that have been done from different places, and connect." For example, 22-year-old Bellinda Raymond traveled from Malaysia to attend the Conference of Youth prior to heading to COP21. She described herself as an active citizen, someone who engages with members of her indigenous community, especially ahead of major weather events that have the potential to destroy homes and vital surroundings. She said her grandparents weren't affected by climate change in the ways she is today. "As an indigenous person, we depend on the forest and rivers for our daily life – and we also have our traditional system, also related to the climate. The weather is now unpredictable and we need to adapt to the environment that’s changing," Ms. Raymond said.

Environment, Youth

2015 was a major year, for the action on climate change closely connects to the adoption of the new objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to 2030. Goal Number 7 is Affordable and Clean Energy (ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all); Goal Number 13 is Climate Action (take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts); and Goal Number 15 is Life On Land (protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss). The United Nations recently reported that more than half a billion children live in areas with extremely high flood occurrences, while 160 million are in high drought severity zones. UNICEF believes that the obtaining of a just and ambitious agreement is crucial for the future of children. Indeed, climate change has a catastrophic impact on a big part of the progress realised for children during the previous decades. UNICEF programmes focus on the most disadvantaged children, including those living in fragile contexts, those with disabilities, those who are affected by rapid urbanisation, and those affected by environmental degradation.

One of the 7 UNICEF youth ambassadors, Andozile from Zimbabwe, says that one of the most important things he learned at COP21 was that adaptation should be every country’s number one priority. With this in mind, he is now actively involved in helping his community adapt to climate change by advocating for the use of drought-resistant crops in agricultural production. Andozile has also been actively involved in mitigation projects (a partnership by UNICEF and Wildlife Society in Zambia) such as tree planting and nursery establishment in his community in Mpika, which raised over 5,000 trees that were distributed in schools and public places.