The goal of this side-event meeting was to provide young women and men a chance to present concrete solutions, actions and experiences. The MOST Programme also organized the side-event as a contribution to help young change-makers keep their momentum going through adding a youth component to the One Planet Summit, strengthening and promoting all its components: climate change education, training, public awareness, public participation and public access to information. UNESCO supports young change-makers to stand for recognition of their work at individual, national and international levels, including through inclusion and access to finance.

Addressing climate change and contributing to the implementation of the Paris Agreement is of huge value for UNESCO and the MOST Programme. The overarching objective of the Agenda 2030, in which SDG’s concern climate change, is to ‘leave no one behind’. To do so, we need youth, youth actions and active engagement to contribute to their goals and to achieve the SDG’s.  Youth should be involved in both the design and implementation of policies for climate change.

Cecilie Golden, Programme Specialist, MOST Programme, stressed that climate change and its challenges, and thus to find solutions for mitigation and adaptation is important for UNESCO which has a specific strategy on Climate Change. Responding to climate change is essentially a social transformation challenge as climate change is contributing among others to poverty, migration and other social challenges.  The future of the planet, including climate change, is therefore one of the five thematic focus areas of the comprehensive MOST Strategy endorsed by UNESCO’s Executive Board in 2016. Through the three pillars of the MOST Strategy, research, knowledge brokering and intergovernmental forums, MOST is contributing to policies informed by social science findings, including to address the social dimensions of climate change.

Miroslav Polzer, Secretary-General of the International Association for the Advancement of Innovative Approaches to Global Challenges (IAAI), and Alexandra Lutz, CLIMATES, also joined in the welcoming words.

The first thematic focus of the event was on Education and its centrality in tackling climate change and implementing the Paris Agreement and SDGs.

Julia Heiss, Education for Sustainable Development Team Leader, Education Sector, UNESCO, introduced the agenda item indicating inter alia that education is proven to be the best tool for climate change awareness and that in a survey 77% people believed education is the most useful tool to reducing greenhouse gas emission.

Alexander Schischlik, Chief, Youth and Sport Section, UNESCO informed about UNESCO’s actions for youth and encouraged youth engaged in the policy-making process through social mediums and other tools.

The next agenda item focused on the Stakes of finance designed and adapted to the scales of local projects and current shortcomings and was introduced by Magnus Magnusson Director of Partnership and Outreach, Social and Human Sciences Sector, UNESCO. He stressed that there is an upcoming trend in financial support for climate change. As per information 20 countries, including both the US and Saudi Arabia, launched Mission Innovation to support clean energy innovation and double investment in energy research and development from current levels of about $10 billion.

Youth participants showed their concerns and doubts including that there are no clear criteria and no mechanisms to inform people that there is funding and there is no access for young people to the funding. Young people under 25 need to have access to the right tools to participate in the finance management.

The youth representatives stressed the need for platforms where their voices can be heard, and they can dialogue with several stakeholders.

• The event can be viewed here https://www.facebook.com/CliMatesWorldwide/videos/1531601096922147/
• More on the One Planet Summit