Youth Intervention at Bonn 1: Transcript
Title: How old will you be in 2050?
My name is Kirsty and in the year 2050, I will be 66 years old.
I am one of the hundreds of millions of young people around the world who are anxious about our future. We have read the science, and we understand that we must now release ourselves from ‘Business as usual’ and take a momentous leap forward to grasp our sustainable future with both hands.
To the developed countries: please, put your targets on the table – these must be a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by a minimum of 40% on 1990 levels by 2020; decarbonisation by 2050; and stabilisation of greenhouse gases by well below 350 ppm CO2 equivalents. Anything less ambitious is simply not enough.
We commend the ambition of AOSIS and LDCs – countries whose survival is not negotiable. If you think that these targets are not practical or pragmatic, you are denying these countries their fundamental right to survive.
We also commend the Maldives for their recent announcement that at any cost they will bring their nation to carbon neutrality within a decade. We now need this sort of moral leadership from other nations too.
To the USA, Australia, Japan, Canada, the EU and New Zealand – we the youth think that your targets are quite frankly a little stupid. They compromise our future. You have only a few months to improve your positions and we implore you to work harder.
To developing countries – we urge you too to take on ambitious, nationally appropriate mitigation strategies and take action now. We can’t solve climate change without you.
Now finally, I would like to ask you all here a very important question, which I hope you will all take a moment to consider:
How old will you be in 2050?
I said before that I will be 66, hoping to retire after four decades of working towards decarbonising our society. As youth, we commit to working with you now – and over these forty years – to achieve this transformation.
Inter-generational equity is crucial. But we also need more than that, because we are the people who will be implementing these targets. So we ask all nations to formally recognise youth in this capacity within the text of a Copenhagen agreement.
To conclude: I challenge each one of you to come and meet the youth here in Bonn, and back home in your countries, and look us in the eye and guarantee that you are confident that we will still have a livable planet in the year 2050.
We need this guarantee because in 2050, we will be one of the generations that will still be here.
