The Strategic Youth Network for Development (SYND) held a summit to enable the youth dialogue with climate negotiators on the adverse effects of climate change and interventions by the Conference of Parties to tackle the challenge.

Conference of Parties (COP) is a conference where all parties interested in climate change, from academia, civil society, government and private sector come together to agree on coordinated action to tackle climate change.

The event dubbed “Pre-COP26 Youth Summit: Dialogue with climate negotiators,” took place at the Miklin Hotel in Accra on Thursday, October 21, 2021.

In attendance were Deputy Head of Mission at the Italian Embassy, Ms. Alessandra Oliva, climate negotiators; Project Coordinator of the National Adaptation Plan (NAP), Dr. Antwi-Boasiako Amoah, Legal adviser to the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) to the UNFCCC, Prof. Seth Osafo and Executive coordinator at African Youth Initiative on Climate Change, Kassim Gawusu-Toure, among others.

Interacting with participants, Dr. Antwi-Boasiako Amoah, who is also a Deputy Director at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), made a clarion call for the youth to invest in the agenda to address climate change.

According to him, there have been some efforts in the past to involve the youth into the discussion.

He noted that in present times, there has been some level of commitment by the youth, thus “We need to have formal structure in place to bring on board young ones interested in addressing these issues. It takes people who are committed to be part of the process. If you don’t have the will to work, it won’t work.”

Mr Kassim Gawusu-Toure spoke on Common Time Frames for Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). He revealed that there is a push for a 5-year common time frame for climate action with regards to the Paris Agreement.

This he said is due to several factors such as the submission of NDCs, and global stock take done every five years per the said Agreement.

“So we hope that common time frame should be 5 years so that it aligns perfectly with all these processes. Because if you put 10 years against 5 year of the processes within the Paris agreement, then it means you are putting it out of order.

“We hope that there will be new technology as we move on so if the parties submit a 10-year common time frame and there is a technology that can help the party to further enhance its ambition. It means that it will take 10 years before any party can adopt that technology but if it is 5 years, it means they can easily adopt such technology,” he added.

For Professor Seth Safo, discussion on climate change has become relevant.

Sharing similar stands was Alessandra Oliva, who in her remarks urged the youth to play a vital role in the discourse.

During the day’s activities, Agyekum Patience, Climate Change Focaal Point & Polict Team Lead (SYND), also shared her experience from the #Youth4Climate Conference in Milan, Italy in September.

She highlighted three pertinent issues that were dialogued at the conference. They were; meaningful youth engagement, capacity building and funding.

Interacting with Myjoyonline.com on the sidelines of the summit, Executive Director, Chibeze Ezekiel indicated that SYND-Ghana will every month engage the youth in a webinar to dialogue on COP issues.

According to him, the youth-oriented non-governmental organization will in the coming days relaunch its flagship programme Children for Climate Action.

“Education is normally in two ways. The formal and informal approach. So as an NGO, we engage in sensitization and education. We go to schools and communities to educate people,” he added.

Also, he used the opportunity to urge the youth to dive into the climate change discourse as job opportunities will be created from initiatives to address the menace.

The 26th COP summit will be hosted in a partnership by the UK and Italy. The conference will be held in Glasgow from 1-12 November 2021.

SYND Ghana is a youth-oriented non-governmental organization that promotes Youth inclusion in the governance of the Natural Resources and Environmental (NRE) sector.

It operates in four thematic areas namely Forestry, Climate Change, Biodiversity and Energy Access. It is also the Convener of the Youth in Natural Resources and Environmental Governance (Youth-NREG) Platform as well as the West Africa Regional Node for ACCESS Coalition.