Milan, 30 September 2021 – A busy schedule concluded today the proceedings of the #Youth4Climate Driving Ambition in Milan, with Italy’s President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella in attendance.
Approximately 400 young people came to Italy from all over the world to present their proposals to Prime Minister Mario Draghi, English Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Minister Cingolani, COP26 President Alok Sharma and the environment ministers of more than 40 countries representing the international community which in a month, in Glasgow, will have the task of bringing home a decisive agreement for the fight against climate change.
It was an exciting day, during which the four co-chairs of the youth association, Nisreen Elsaim (Sudan), Ernest Gibson (Fiji), Nathan Metenier (France) and Sophia Kianni (USA) illustrated the main points of the demands from the under 30s.
The hope is that Youth4Climate will become a stable event, for the intergenerational dialogue to seamlessly go on. This idea was underlined by Minister Cingolani, and also supported by the Prime Minister. Reducing inequalities, involving young people in decision-making processes, promoting a public-private aid program, these are some of the proposals advanced.
Italy’s commitment, underlined by Minister Cingolani in the press conference, is to double down on its aid to disadvantaged countries, reaching one billion euros. We are indeed aware of the geopolitical dimension of climate issues and that global warming cannot be addressed without first bridging the huge socio-economic gap between the North and South.
“Your generation – said Draghi, addressing the young delegates – is the most threatened by climate change. You are right to ask for accountability, to ask for change. The ecological transition is not a choice, it is a necessity. We only have two options. Either we face the costs of this transition now, or we act later – which would mean paying a much higher price of a climate disaster.”
“We are aware – underlined the prime minister – that we must do more, much more. This will be the objective of the Summit in Rome which will be held at the end of October. At the G20 level, we want to make a commitment to keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees. And we want to develop long-term strategies that are consistent with this objective.”
Draghi did not dodge the issue raised by Greta Thunberg in her speech on Tuesday and prominent in media coverage: “Sometimes the “blah blah blah” is just a way to hide our inability to act – Draghi said in his reply – but when such large transformations are carried out you have to convince people, explain that numbers, such as the increase by 1.5 degrees, are not made up but provided by science, and people must be convinced by this argument”. In short, there is also a problem of consensus to be created around climate measures, a consensus which, in a democracy, must be built with information, awareness-raising and scientific dissemination.
Another “hot” topic, raised with energy and passion by Vanessa Nakate in her speech and by other delegates from the less fortunate areas of the planet, is financing for poor and/or most damaged countries and most at risk due to climate change.
Cingolani announced that he will propose that the Government to double Italy’s contribution, currently amounting to over 400 million euros, and bring it to one billion euros.
Cingolani focused on a geo-political problem: «Sustainability for me is a matter of compromise. We need to be super-fast in mitigating the effects of climate change, but slow enough so as not to destroy jobs. It’s not easy, it’s very difficult. And it is a different compromise from country to country. The solutions must be specific to each state, there is no one-size-fits-all solution.”
Now all eyes are on PreCop, which began this afternoon and will end on Saturday.
The ministers gathered in Milan will have to do the groundwork for COP26 in Glasgow tasked with bolstering climate commitments.
A press conference was held by Minister Cingolani, Jayathma Wickramanayake, the UN envoy for youth, the two delegates Vladislav Kaim, Moldovan, and Reem Al Saffar, Iraqi, and Alok Sharma, president of Cop26: “The messages we heard from the young participants in Youth4Climate should serve as a reminder and send a wake-up call to ministers around the world. Their proposals, which are aligned with many of COP26 objectives, will help us achieve the results we aimed for during this complex multilateral negotiation.
This is a generation that faces scary consequences and will judge us harshly if we don’t act. We must be able to look our young people in the eye and tell them we have done everything necessary to protect their future.
Building a future where a temperature increase by 1.5 degrees is not exceeded depends on COP26 in Glasgow. So, we need to do the math before COP26 and make sure we lay that we lay the foundations for successful negotiations and address ambitious topics on adaptation, mitigation, loss and damage and financing, as well as finalizing the Paris Regulation. As many of us will meet here for the last time before Glasgow, I hope we can build on the objectives we set at the July ministerial meeting in London.”
