Thank you, the organizers, UN Bhutan, Royal Government of Bhutan United Nations.
Prim Rajasurang Wongkrasaemongkol
Facilitator: Ms. Joyce Poan, Programme Specialist and Chief of Education, UNESCO-New Delhi UNESCO India UNESCO
14 November 2024
Venue: Convention Hall, Royal University of Bhutan, Thimphu
Time 09:05–09:40
Facebook live: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=865003818852440
News: https://www.youtube.com/live/l6zqFE68g5A?si=RXlimmxXT9C9oXWq
Website: https://sites.google.com/view/sdgpartnershipsweek/schedule?authuser=0 YouTube: https://youtu.be/SnF326Hf9_0?si=8NFPYUwMWeuQJt5R
Climate Change and Youth
Climate change exacerbates poverty, deepens inequality, and disproportionately impacts the most vulnerable, and youth have been impacted by climate change and polycrisis in all aspects of our lives, economically and socially. From the Himalayas to the forest, to the river, to the ocean, people everywhere are vulnerable; we cannot breathe poisonous air; we cannot live in a dirty environment. Climate change makes us lose our home, lose hope, we lose our life, and our loved ones. When the climate is fierce, climate change, the global boiling; there is nowhere we can hide and nowhere we can go. Furthermore, some animals have been extinct and endangered. Bhutan has a very beautiful nature and rich biodiversity with animals, forests, mountains, glaciers, and rivers. These are precious resources; it is the world’s fresh water, the world’s fresh breath, the world’s forest. It is crucial that we maintain and preserve our natural environment and mitigate the adverse effects of climate change.
In addition to protecting our environment, our world is interconnected; we live together in the same world. Wildfires in one place affected the flood in another area. We need a lifelong skill and empowerment that raises awareness from the children, youth, women, men, people with disabilities, elderly, marginalized communities, indigenous people, and everyone in our society to take climate action.
Action for Climate Empowerment | Greening Education Partnership
(UNESCO, Greening Education Partnership)
Green Education
Education empowers lives. The education is interconnected, multi-dimensional, localized, and creative for Bhutanese people. This transformative education is climate-ready education, where it would be the new experience of learning like the simulation of natural disasters. This will help the students, children, and youth to be aware of the drastic impact of climate change and how every single action can save their lives and their loved ones.
The long-lasting and sustainable transition to a net carbon future is the awareness, awareness from the heart; we need climate education. Transforming education is transforming lives. For the children and youth, we have to be climate-ready; it has been our everyday lives, and it is shaping the future of us, the future of our nation, and the future of our world.
Disaster Risk Reduction, safety measurement and Early Warning System
We need Climate Edutainment, edutainment for disaster preparedness like earthquakes, glacial lake outburst floods, and other natural disasters. We need education about where we should go when there is an earthquake. How should we hide? These are the crucial information we need when the climate changes; we must adapt. Furthermore, the inclusive social protection scheme leverages financing mechanisms and builds synergies with development and sustainability for climate action.
Comprehensive, people-centered, multi-hazard early warning systems that function end-to-end can improve resilience and significantly reduce risks to lives, assets, and livelihoods by enabling timely, well-prepared, and thoroughly tested early actions. AI can help advance disaster risk knowledge, speed up hazard detection and monitoring, speed up warning delivery and improve communication and dissemination.
(UNESCO, 2024) (5 Ways AI Can Strengthen Early Warning Systems, 2024) (Urban, 2024)
Inspiring Education
We need education that engages children. It is fun and inspiring — the education that inspires people to be agents of change and long-life learning. We need an education that makes us love nature, to be peaceful, and to cherish our culture, our local environment, our values, our community, and our way of life. This starts with caring, sharing, and teaching for climate action.
Green Jobs
Every job can be a green job. The agriculture sector is an important job; food is life. Food is our health, our happiness, well-being, and culture. Green jobs are inspiring, fun, smart, and uplift people’s lives. Green jobs can be a high-paid job; it not only gives you better pay but it also makes other people higher paid as well by maximizing the natural resources.
Artificial intelligence and data analytics will play a key role in advance development in climate change. Youth galvanize actions; when youth are equipped with technological skills, AI skills, and STEM skills, it further accelerates inclusive, sustainable, and resilient development.
These aspiring green scientists, researchers in agriculture, farmers, and crop analytics are the aspiring jobs for young people. We need the creativity, ideas, and passion from young people around the world to develop local action, local research, and specialized solutions to empower the world, uplift their communities, and contribute to society. AI could empower local, specialized Bhutan development from Bhutanese young people.
Partnership
Partnerships from the government, private sector, civil society, and youth — meaningful and inclusive youth engagement and participation in decision-making — will play a pivotal role with an acceleration that will leapfrog Bhutan’s development. The co-creation of intergenerational partnerships and collaboration from all stakeholders to leave no one behind. Furthermore, this aligns with the Agenda Chikha, which also highlights the importance of leaving no one behind, the inclusion of people with disabilities, and the whole of society approach for climate action.
Interconnected Partnership from all sectors, from children, youth, women, men, people with disabilities, marginalized communities, indigenous people, and the elderly to implement the solutions for climate change. The time for action is right here and right now.
All living things are stakeholders in climate change. We must work together for an equitable, inclusive, and sustainable future for all.
Youth, we are the green changers. Youth are the game changers. With the youth, we have hope. Then, we will turn our hope into reality.
References
- UNESCO. (n.d.). Greening Education Partnership. https://www.unesco.org/en/sustainable-development/education/greening-future.
- UNESCO. (2024, June 20). Early Warning Systems. https://www.unesco.org/en/disaster-risk-reduction/ews.
- 5 Ways AI Can Strengthen Early Warning Systems. (2024, September 10). United Nations University. https://unu.edu/ehs/series/5-ways-ai-can-strengthen-early-warning-systems
- Urban, S. (2024, November 4). Social Protection in the Age of Climate Change. https://www.unescap.org/blog/social-protection-age-climate-change.
