It was during the UN Climate Summit in Katowice, Poland in 2018 that I first heard a more vocal discussion on the topic of just transition. At that time, it was the Polish coal workers who opposed a climate transition, based on the future existence of their jobs and thereby risking income and livelihoods. The discussion is of course broader but encompasses that fact that even a green transition has its negative effects and that even though the end goal is a healty planet, negative effects will arise and that there is a societal and unevenly distributed cost for going green. A representative illustration might be the predicted growth in mining that potentially risks local negative effects on the environment and for indigenous people.
There is also another view on inclusive green development and that is that there is a huge potential in bringing in traditionally marginalised groups. One of todays side-events addressed exactly that by putting world youth organisations on stage and take into account their advice and experiences.
In the middle of the photo above, you see Vsevolod Lukashenok, working for YWCA-YMCA. His message was:
- Do not assume what the youth need, let us in and let us express our needs.
- Trust and believe in young people. Make the decisions not for us, but with us.
- Young people are vulnerable in that sense that the need a safe space in order to express themselves, explore and grow. That is why it is hard to draw youth into projects. The Stockholm+50 is not a safe space for youth. But by engaging with youth organisations it will work because we are a safe space.
Merely by his message, Vsevolod proved to those who might have doubted the importance of having youth integrated at the table at UN conferences and in societal development in general.
