United Nations Climate Change Chief Christiana Figueres has challenged young people in Trinidad and Tobago to use communications technology and social media, to form a youth movement across the world to address climate change issues. Speaking via video from her office in Bonn, Germany, at the opening of Trinidad and Tobago's First Youth Forum on Climate Change hosted by Earth Conscious magazine at the Hyatt on Saturday, Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said climate change is a defining issue of young people. "In Trinidad and Tobago, the climate change threat is literally on your beach," she said.
"As young people on an island nation, you are extremely aware of the impacts of climate change. "As young people who are members of a generation, climate change is the defining issue of your generation. You are Generation C, or Generation Climate. It is a tremendous responsibility. "But your generation also has a powerful tool than no other generation had before, thanks to the Internet, to communications technology and to social media, you are the most interconnected generation that ever lived. Use that knowledge, that voice, that power. "You are more capable of getting your message heard and more capable of linking up with like-minded people than any generation before you."
Figueres, a Costa Rican national said young people can use interconnection to form social or environmental movements dedicated to finding solutions. "If you are at this forum it is because you care, because you are already engaged," she said. "My invitation today is for you to take that caring, that engagement to the next level, to begin to form a youth movement across the world that addresses climate change in a constructive, powerful way, such that you successfully usher in the new energy revolution. My generation is doing what we can to address climate change. It is clearly not enough. I trust you will decide that you must do more, because I know you can."
