RES Foundation, in cooperation with the Belgrade Open School, organized an event dedicated to young people and the fight against climate change called “Climate will change the world”, where our youth delegate Zvezdana Božović presented her impressions from COP28. This event, one of the series of Green Talks, was held on March 7 in the Fabrika venue in Belgrade.
Young people need clear and easily accessible sources of information when it comes to climate change, but also a changed approach to formal education from schools to colleges. Also important are informal programs and opportunities that will introduce young people to this problem, as well as solutions. Christopher Leigh from the British Embassy in Belgrade emphasized the importance of the education process in the early engagement of young people in the necessary climate actions.
What can we do and what is the role of the youth? The climate for the next 30 years has already been predetermined thanks to the previous emissions of gases with the greenhouse effect. For example, each of us annually produces four tons of carbon dioxide (heating, cooking, powering phones, laptops, and so on), and the atmosphere still contains carbon dioxide emitted by two generations before us. This is a generational injustice suffered by young people, but what is up to us is to ask ourselves what we can do and be “critical optimists”, as indicated by Zvezdana Božović, youth delegate of RES Foundation at last year’s COP 28.
The future depends on how much carbon dioxide we emit, primarily on the way we produce and use energy, leaving fossil fuels, such as coal, as soon as possible. Young people are here, interested in the issue of climate change, and what they need are open opportunities in all sectors of society so that young people can be part of current and future solutions, could be drawn as a conclusion of the event.
The participants talked with professionals from different fields, from technical sciences, to nature conservation, to social sciences, about how climate change is connected to different professions, and lecturers from the University of Exeter in Great Britain talked about the importance of storytelling in effective communication of topics arising from climate change.
RES Foundation organized the event in cooperation with BOŠ and the Center for the Promotion of Science within the project “Turn on – Civil Society for Energy Transition”. The project is implemented with the support of the British Embassy in Belgrade, and in addition to the Belgrade Open School, the project is implemented by the Regulatory Institute for Renewable Energy and the Environment – RERI.
