Youth for climate: Protests or Action?

The sea is swallowing villages, rivers are sweeping away the dams, fires are gulping forests, heat waves are frying the ecosystem around us. Time is running out to arrest the catastrophic global warming. There is no need at all to question the existence of global warming. One can see all the extreme events happening more intensely and more frequently.

There is, however, an urgent need to question what youth can do for this existential threat due to global warming to our planet.

In such desperate circumstances, what the youth who are tomorrows policymakers, leaders and entrepreneurs, should do? Protest on the streets? Keep watching? Keep demanding the actions by government and business? or should they roll up the sleeves to take actions themselves to reduce global warming?

We in TERRE Policy Centre (terrepolicycentre.com) are promoting actions by youth to bring in the transformation themselves in their career and personal life. In case you need to know how to take action, visit the website of Smart Campus Cloud Network (SCCN): sccnhub.com  350+ institutes of higher education have agreed to follow this path and offering their campuses as laboratories for ClimatAction!

What we are doing is not simply awareness-raising or classroom exercise on climate change. We advocate actions by youth by making campus a laboratory for SDGs and climate change. Once students graduate, ClimatAction becomes a life-long undercurrent for them in their careers.

Many campuses have already become laboratories for SDGs and global warming. Universities have started the actions in their campus. You can be read in this weekly newsletter.

Each one of these case studies represents actions, innovations and creativity. You can adopt them in your campuses. The report from UNEP released in Feb 2021 called, Global Environmental Outlook, or 'GEO-6 for Youth' ' says:

" Young people today – who make up one-sixth of the global population – can help bring about a sustainable future by making deliberate choices in their everyday lives".

It's all about making choices and selecting a career path.

Rajendra Shende

Chairman, TERRE Policy Centre

Former Director, UNEP