Live from the UN conference on climate change in Copenhagen: European youth call for a climate-friendly energy policy

At the start of the UN Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen, young participants from the Young Ideas for Europe initiative took part in the conference “Sustaining People and the Planet: A Fair Deal in Copenhagen” in the Swedish city of Malmö, and discussed their vision of a climate-friendly energy policy with conference participants and the Kofi Annan’s Youth Forum. Today they are travelling together with European Commission Vice President Margot Wallström, former Irish President Mary Robinson and former Norwegian Minister President Gro Harlem Brundtland to the summit in Copenhagen as part of the initiative “Road to Copenhagen,” where they will hand over their communiqué and present their ideas to the public.

The establishment of energy and climate topics as key elements of European school curricula; affordable access to renewable energy for all EU citizens; remuneration for energy-saving, climate-friendly behaviour; limits upon per-capita electricity usage including higher tariffs for those exceeding the limits; the creation of a European research institute for alternative energy – these are just a few of the demands and ideas developed and articulated in an action plan by youth participants from across Europe as part of the Young Ideas for Europe project. A “student delegation” of participants, representing Europe’s young people, discussed their action plan this week with high-level EU officials in Malmö and Copenhagen: “I’m impressed at how active and engaged the young participants were in their discussions with conference-goers in Malmö,” said Christian Hänel, Deputy Head of Department for International Relations at the Robert Bosch Stiftung. “They mixed in well and represented themselves convincingly – and were taken very seriously by the other conference participants.” After Copenhagen, the students’ next engagement with EU decision makers is this Friday, where they will present their ideas at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

Just a few weeks earlier, the students handed over their action plan to the Swedish Presidency of the European Union and the European Commission: On November 18th, a student delegation presented their plan to Swedish Ambassador to Germany Ruth Jacoby at the Embassy in Berlin. The Ambassador promised to give the action plan to the Swedish Presidency, and was confident that the Swedish government was as interested in implementing the students’ plans as the students themselves. On November 20th, Young Ideas for Europe participants from Sweden discussed their ideas in Stockholm with Margot Wallström, Vice President of the European Commission.