How informed are youth on climate change?

This week, the Government of Canada released comments on the effectiveness of non-governmental organizations at United Nations climate change talks, claiming that Canadian youth are “not well informed” and that some are “under-engaged or engaged very late in the process.”
Not all youth are necessarily experts in climate change policy or science (though many are), but most youth are experts in understanding the longevity and seriousness of climate change, to the extent that only someone who will be living in 50 years from now truly can.
That expertise and motivation carries the heaviest of weight. Past President of the United Nations climate change negotiations in 2005 attributed the conference’s global policy success to the influence of the presence of youth at the negotiations. This type of attribution should be embraced.
In terms of science and understanding, men and women under the age of 35 are the most knowledgeable of human-caused climate change in the country, polls show time and time again.
There is a growing number of young Canadians who – once teenagers and young 20-somethings at the United Nations – are now deeply engaged in climate change solutions within Canada and around the world. Many of these youth, who will remain un-named, have gone on to do detailed climate change policy work for the Government of Canada’s own delegation, the negotiating teams of other countries, or for the United Nations itself.
Here are a few of a much larger group of the most informed individuals in Canada today who have sat at the table with Canada’s policy makers representing Canadian youth. May their stories inspire us all.
 
Rosa Kouri
Kouri attended five international climate negotiations as a youth delegate between 2005-2009. In 2005, in recognition of her work with the Canadian Youth Delegation and other youth environmental organizations, Kouri was named one of the top female leaders working on climate change by the World Conservation Union. Shortly before the 2009 Copenhagen climate talks, Kouri graduated with distinction from Oxford University, with an MSc in Environmental Policy. Her peer-reviewed and award-winning research focused on the potential for job creation in the wake of environmental legislation. Following her master’s, she developed science and technology policy at Environment Canada. She is now currently in Ottawa with the Leader’s Office of the Official Opposition. Kouri is a founding member of the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition.
 
Robert Niven
Niven is a scientist and entrepreneur with participation at four UN climate change negotiations over the past seven years, in varying roles of academic, Canadian Youth Delegation member, and cleantech entrepreneur. He founded and runs two climate change and emission-reduction oriented companies. Carbon Sense Solutions provides carbon accounting services for governments and multinationals. CarbonCure Technologies is a venture-backed cleantech company with a carbon capture and recycling technology that consumes CO2 to make greener, lower-cost and higher performance concrete products. The technology is now operating in three factories across North America and poised for international expansion. They are working towards transforming concrete production, now the 2nd largest industrial GHG polluter, into a carbon-negative process while maintaining the same costs, scale and performance.
Ben Powless
 
Powless is a Mohawk citizen from Six Nations in Ontario. He has served on the youth delegation at more than a dozen international conferences, including the UN climate change negotiations, UN food and agriculture meetings, and the Rio +20 Earth Summit. Powless is a climate justice campaigner with the Indigenous Environmental Network, and previously worked with the Youth Environmental Network. Powless has dedicated his time to photography, deeply linked to climate change issues and international negotiations and summits.  Powless is a founding member of the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition, and has been deeply involved in various volunteer-based climate change education campaigns. He is an avid public speaker on climate change and its intersection with indigenous peoples around the world and international UN negotiations. He has contributed to various online and print publications on climate change and environment. His academic background includes human rights, indigenous and environmental studies, and sustainable rural development.
Adam Scott
 
Scott has attended five UN climate change negotiations focusing his own work on climate policy. Before that, Scott was engaged on the youth caucus to the Commission on Sustainable Development. Scott, in his role with the youth delegations, has met with the past four Canadian Environment Ministers to discuss the subject of climate policy, as well as various international diplomats, bureaucrats and experts. Scott has served as a researcher with the Global Environmental Change research group at the University of Guelph, contributing to peer-reviewed climate research on impacts and adaptation which was included as part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report. Scott now is the Green Energy Program Manager for the non-profit organization Environmental Defence, working on Canadian energy policy research and advocacy, focusing on climate change solutions and energy policy in Ontario.
 
Claire Stockwell
 
Stockwell has consistently attended UN climate change negotiations for the past decade. She lead youth parallel events to the Montreal Climate Change Conference in 2005 and is a founding member of the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition. She has served as a consultant in the field of climate change law and policy and has delivered ambitious climate change policy positions, research, and program development for countries around the world. Stockwell has worked with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the Climate Change Programme of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, and has served on the Climate Action Network Canada’s Board of Directors. She was a youth representative at the UN Secretary General’s first ever Heads of State meeting on climate change in 2007. She has published various academic articles on climate change law, including The Architecture of the Global Climate Regime: A Top-Down Perspective. Stockwell holds an International Masters in Environmental Policy from Roskilde University, a Bachelor of Science from McGill University, and an International Baccalaureate Diploma from Li Po Chun United World College. She is currently completing her PhD on climate change litigation at Oxford University.
 
The above information was sent in a letter to the Honourable Peter Kent, Minister of Environment and the Honourable Megan Leslie, Environment Critic on August 10, 2012.
Blog by Zoë Caron

Caron is the co-author of Global Warming for Dummies. She has attended six international UN climate change negotiations, in addition to the G8 and G20 talks where she successfully led an international team to keep climate change on the summit agendas. She is the Climate & Energy Specialist here at WWF-Canada where she works to secure Canadian government leadership on climate change policy.  Beyond WWF, she is the Editor of International Policy on the world’s #1 climate change blog ItsGettingHotInHere.org, is a founding member of the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition, and was the past President of Sierra Club Canada. She has travelled to the Arctic and Antarctic on climate change expeditions, and has an academic background in environmental and climate change science. She was recognized in both Canada and the U.S. as a young leader on climate change solutions in media including Vanity Fair, ELLE, Green Living Magazine and Alternatives Journal.