Reflections from COP27: Youth Participation Must Not Be Tokenistic

It's the second week of #COP27egypt. Beyond opening statements and formalities, this is when the real work happens – negotiations in a bid to finalise a workable communique that would shape climate actions before the next COP in 2023. As a United Nations agency, WFP has observer access to these closed-door meetings, and it’s been really exciting to sit in and listen to discussions that have the potential to create real change. Here’s what WFP Climate Change Account Manager Jenny Wilson has learned in the second week of the UN Climate Change Conference.

Youth participation must not be tokenistic

Yesterday I witnessed a great example of active youth participation. An 18-year-old climate activist asked a question during a side event. While she was speaking, the moderator beckoned her to come on stage and join the panel. She argued that young people don’t need leaders to tell us they’re important – they need them to invite them to the table as equals.

There have been many steps in the right direction this year to ensure youth voices are actively included – including a Youth Envoy, the first ever Children and Youth Pavilion at a COP, and the Secretary-General’s Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change. But there are still so many barriers to youth participation, not least the astronomical costs required to attend high-level conferences. Next year we’d like to see at least one young person supported to join every delegation and advisory group.

1.5°C degrees is a limit, not a target

In 2015, nearly 200 nations set the goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C degrees compared to pre-industrial levels, as part of the Paris Agreement. Since then, countries have made pledges to keep this limit within reach, yet emissions are still rising. Even with the full implementation of current pledges, the world is heading towards 2.4°C - 2.6°C of warming by the end of the century.

People are starting to claim that the 1.5°C degrees limit is dead. In many ways, this is a valid point – the planet has already warmed by about 1.1°C and studies suggest that temperatures could cross the 1.5°C threshold within a decade. But climate action is based on the principle of hope that we can still avoid the worst. If we accept that this limit will inevitably be surpassed, will already half-hearted mitigation efforts decline?

Climate insurance supports recovery from loss and damage?

I’ve realised this week that I take insurance for granted. If my house is flooded, I call my insurance company and they will compensate me for my damaged possessions. But millions of people around the world, especially those who are experiencing the worst climate impacts, don’t have access to such insurance and they do not receive support for climate-induced losses and damages. There is a lot of debate at COP27 about who should pay for loss and damage. But in the end, we all end up paying for it. Communities pay for it in the form of lost lives and livelihoods. The global economy pays for it in lost growth and destabilization.

This week, a climate disaster aid scheme called the ‘Global Shield’ was launched by the V20 and G7. The initiative uses pre-arranged finance that can be rapidly deployed when climate disasters hit, providing financial protection to communities and lessening the impact of disasters. WFP will receive US$ 20 million through one mechanism of the Global Shield, which will go towards expanding our climate risk insurance programmes currently in 18 countries.

Loss and damage is an issue of climate injustice. Schemes like the Global Shield are overdue, but we still have a long way to go to averting, minimizing and addressing loss and damage.?

Stay tuned for Jenny's final reflections from?#COP27 as the conference wraps up this week!