Youth #TellBanKiMoon at the UN Climate Talks

update: this event happened on Thursday, June 13th. The recorded video is embedded below.

The virtual meeting between New York and Bonn will take place this Thursday, 13 June, 18:30-18:45 CET, the webcast will be available to the public, and youth worldwide will be able to engage on twitter using the #TellBanKiMoon hashtag to send their messages and ideas to the Secretary General on issues related to youth, climate change and intergenerational equity. All messages received by 30 June 2013 will be captured and brought to The Secretary General’s attention, with a few of them already read out during the first virtual dialogue.

During the current round of climate negotiations, YOUNGO, the official youth constituency to The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), have stressed upon parties to institutionalise the principle of intergenerational Equity within the proposed 2015 climate change agreement.

In the midst of disputes between Russia and other parties this past week that have held up parts of the UNFCCC process, YOUNGO urged Poland, the hosts of the next climate conference (COP19), to inject ambition into the negotiations. Youth also pushed Poland to take the opportunity to make COP19 a pivotal point in history, where they can unite with the European Union and show the rest of the world how to tackle climate issues responsibly.

Addressing youth earlier this year, the Secretary-General called on the world’s youth to take the helm in steering the international community through its turbulent period of economic and political transition and towards a more “prosperous, equitable and peaceful future”. In response, youth are calling the Secretary General to ensure that they will be represented and given the space to indeed take a steering role in the high-level climate meeting of world leaders that Ban Ki-moon plans to convene next year, in order to mobilise political will and scale up commitments for the 2015 agreement.

Already in Bonn, YOUNGO helped to launch the Youth in Action report. The publication, which features YOUNGO, highlights concrete action young people are taking to incite their governments to scale up action on climate change and raise ambition towards a post-2020 climate change regime.