COP27 youth protested at the UN climate summit calling for an end to investment in fossil fuels.
COP27 youth protested inside the main square of the ‘Blue Zone’ located in an outdoor area of the Tonino Lamborghini International Convention Centre.
Some 50 activists, including representatives of the youth and persons with disabilities, plus a Pikachu, the fictional Pokemon creature, and a T-Rex lookalike – characters that we remember well from COP26 in Glasgow – demanded an end to the financing of fossil fuels.
“While the wealthiest governments are claiming climate leadership, they are actually funnelling billions of dollars towards new gas, oil, and coal projects, this will worsen the climate crisis,” one of them told the massive group of journalists and delegates who paused their busy schedules to listen.
The COP27 youth activists’ t-shirts read ‘Stop funding fossil fuels’, a message directed at those attending the first of the thematic days of COP27, on finance.
Various events and meetings discussed the trillions of dollars that will be needed to respond and adapt to climate change. Developing countries continued pushing for a loss and damage fund, a mechanism to provide financial help to nations affected by climate disasters and with little responsibility for global emissions.
Meanwhile, representatives also frequently echoed the words of Barbadian Prime Minister and SDG Advocate Mia Mottley, who has spoken out repeatedly about the crucial need to adopt climate disaster clauses in the current global debt instruments, and reform multilateral developing banks to allow nations to transition into renewable energy.
A coalition led by former US Vice-President Al Gore and supported by the UN Secretary-General. launched new emissions inventory. The futuristic dataset powered by artificial intelligence, satellite data and over 2,000 sensors, shows facility-level emissions at over 70,000 sites around the world, including companies and power plants. António Guterres called it a ‘critical resource’ and a way of making greenwashing more difficult for actors trying to underreport their emissions.
COP27 youth had a heavy presence, with a vibrant and packed first-of-its-kind Children and Youth Pavilion, filled with chants to ‘wake up’ COP27 delegates, a social media takeover, and a roundtable with the UN Chief.
