Time for Action: Register Today and Shape the NDC Partnership’s Youth Engagement Plan
This blog was written by Aoife Fleming (The Netherlands) and Natalia Gómez Solano (Costa Rica) on behalf of the Youth Task Force.
This promo video is also available with French subtitles.
Young leaders from various parts of the world are leading the development of a plan to help the NDC Partnership better engage youth around the world. These youth representatives, working together through the NDC Partnership’s Youth Task Force, are facilitating a global consultation process to identify key opportunities for the NDC Partnership to engage young people in the development and implementation of national climate plans (or NDCs). The Youth Task Force invites youth from all around the world to join the consultations by responding to their questionnaire and joining one of the virtual workshops in July.
Youth are a critical stakeholder in climate action, with 42% of the global population under 25, but we remain underrepresented in decision-making about the future of our planet. If we don’t take ambitious action now, younger generations will have to bear the brunt of the impacts and costs of climate change; already, children and youth are increasingly vulnerable to its effects. Through #FridaysForFuture and #YouthClimateStrike, we are seeing millions of young people taking to the streets to demand more climate action and higher ambition from their governments. This widespread global youth movement has helped put climate change at the top of the agenda for many countries. We are already starting to see governments and institutions working on ways to engage young people constructively in climate change work on the ground (some examples are highlighted in this NDC Partnership blog). Through the Youth Engagement Plan, we want to scale up youth engagement in climate action.
The Youth Task Force is a group of youth representatives leading the development of a Youth Engagement Plan for the NDC Partnership. In March 2020, the NDC Partnership Steering Committee handed this task to a group of youth representatives from NDC Partnership members (Jamaica, Marshall Islands, UK, Sweden, Pakistan, UNICEF, UNDP and RCCC, and representatives of Costa Rica and the Netherlands, who served as co-chairs), supported by the NDC Partnership Support Unit and the Steering Committee Co-Chairs.
Based on inputs received from young people around the world, the Task Force will craft the Partnership’s Youth Engagement Plan, which is to be approved by the Steering Committee in September and launched by the end of 2020. The Plan will outline best practices and practical suggestions aiming at inspiring member countries and institutions to strengthen the engagement of young people as part of their work with the NDC Partnership on developing and implementing Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Climate Agreement.
The Youth Task Force is now embarking on a broad and inclusive consultation process to make sure the Plan is truly youth-led and reflects a wide variety of youth voices and perspectives. Therefore, in July 2020, we are facilitating a consultation process to gather as many and as diverse inputs from young people as possible. We want to better understand the key priorities around climate change for youth in different countries and regions, as well as which are the most prominent obstacles for youth seeking to participate in climate action. Moreover, we want to hear your examples on how you may have engaged effectively with governments and institutions on climate action in your country, so that we can build on those in developing recommendations for the NDC Partnership’s members.
Your inputs and perspective on climate action priorities is critical. Please share your insights with us!
Fill out the questionnaire
Participate in virtual workshops
With these inputs from young people, the Youth Task Force will work in close collaboration with the NDC Partnership’s members, assisted by the Support Unit, to develop a plan that links directly to the Partnership’s context, including the guiding principle of a country-driven approach, and its existing processes for country engagement, knowledge and learning, and communications.
Please feel free to share these engagement opportunities further in your own youth networks. We hope to hear from you, as every single voice counts!