For this special edition, European Youth Event 2021 (EYE 2021) offers a variety in-person activities in Strasbourg including several features environment-related activities to gather ideas in anticipation of COP26 in November 2021. "The European Youth Event 2021 (EYE 2021) offers a variety activities in Strasbourg. Interviews with Katarina BARLEY, Roberta METSOLA, EP Vice-Presidents, Mitzi Jonelle TAN, Climate Activist from Philippines, Anuna DE WEVER, Belgian Climate Activist, and participants to the EYE.

statement

Strasbourg

METSOLA, Roberta (EPP, MT, EP President)

fight against climate change (T)

BARLEY, Katarina (S&D, DE)

European Youth Event 2021 (T)

COP 26 (T)

European Youth Event (EYE 2021): events on Youth for the Climate

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/9102284/I211997Chapters%5BSD-EN%5D.srt

Exterior shots of the EP, Strasbourg (2 shots)

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA (EPP, MT), You see also the climate actions across the world. These are run and pushed by young people demanding change, and in reality, we are the last generation of politicians that can actually do something about it. I have children who are expecting me to do something. Of course, there are different aspects that need to be done. What about our digital transformation? What about greening our jobs, greening our economy? Does the economy have to be mutually exclusive to the environment or can they work together? When we really talk about that circulation that we need of creating new types of jobs and making sure that our young people find employment in that area.

SOUNDBITE (English), Katarina BARLEY (S&amp;D, DE), Climate change, of course, is the issue where the EU expresses itself already very, very vividly. So I expect that this will happen here too. But I think there we already have a lot of inputs. So I am interested also in the other question, we shouldn't reduce the use only to one topic for youth, youth has a very wide range of topics and interests, and I think we should listen to all of them.

SOUNDBITE (English), Mitzi Jonelle TAN, Climate Activist from Philippines, We have to make sure that when we call for climate justice, it's not just about the extreme weather events, it's not just about the environment, but really it's about the systems in place that's causing these threats. A very concrete example is how a typhoon in 2013, called Typhoon Haiyan, which is like the picture boy of super typhoons and climate crisis impacts after the typhoons hit the country, young girls and women had to be forced into prostitution because of their economic standing, not being great after typhoons, and there is no other form of work, and that is how you can see that the gender crisis and the class crisis that are all interlinked.

SOUNDBITE (English), Mitzi Jonelle TAN, Climate Activist from Philippines When we talk about the climate crisis, it's not just the weather. It's not just climate change. The crises nature of the climate crisis comes from that historical and ongoing oppression that we need to talk about more.

SOUNDBITE (English), Anuna DE WEVER, Belgian Climate Activist, The essence of why we are in the climate crisis for me is a lack of information, is the fact that people are not educated on the crisis. Sure, we see things about climate change in school, but not the climate crisis and politicians are not actually being honest about their policies. And in the media, we see narratives of politicians talking about their policies as if they got it under control, but they really don't. So we need media, we need politicians, we need schools, to tell the truth about the crisis, to tell the truth about why we are going through, which is a world of three to four degrees warmer. And what that means.

SOUNDBITE (English), Anuna DE WEVER, Belgian Climate Activist, We can see that the EU is taking big steps and this is real because of the impact that climate activists have had on the political landscape. But it is absolutely not enough and we see that our targets are way off from the targets of the Paris Agreement. We are not holding into account the carbon budget, feedback loops, tipping points, all of those things. And if you look at IPCC reports or UNICEF reports or Red Cross reports, we can see that we are not listening to science and we are going to a world of three to four degrees rise, which is literally a world that nobody can live in.

SOUNDBITE (English), Kans UK citizen living in Belgium There is a huge business lobby that is trying to get their interests heard before the interests of the planet and of young people in climate policies and in all policies that affect sustainability. And it's really important that they are kept out, that there is better transparency about who is lobbying EU politicians and policymakers, and that we make sure that the interests of the planet go before.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sabin, Moldovan citizen living in France, We're talking about energy security and how some countries, even as EU members It's a very big disparity between countries relying on coal or fossil fuels like Poland or Eastern countries. And then you have countries like Belgium or Germany or France trying to switch from these nuclear power, from nuclear power to renewable energy. But it's also very interesting, in order for carbon emissions to actually go down, we need to like increase the cost of production of energy like 700 per cent. From maybe ten or fifteen dollars for a certain amount to seventy-five and so on. So it's very interesting about the implications, what it means for a developed economy a state that has been through the whole process of development, like France like western states. What it means for candidate countries, which have to reach a certain level, but they still have a long way to catch up

SOUNDBITE (English), Hiba, French citizen, Every change starts at the personal level but we need as a society to go beyond that and it's through policy-making as well that we implement and have effective change. It's not only on a personal level, if I reduce my plastic use or if I become more conscious it will have an impact: But for it to be real, now we need this to happen at the decision-making level. So this is why we are trying to both empower and develop young people so that they can advocate for their rights, such as climate justice, and we push as well our institutions to implement effective change.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Miguel , Spanish citizen, We, young people, need to do an exercise that is very important, which is to explain to other generations why it is important to take action now, why it is important to implement the European Green Deal. We need to talk about concrete actions, such as the European Commission's farm-to-fork strategy. Here what we have to explain is, for example, I come from the Canary Islands, where bananas are an important product. We have to consume local products because otherwise we are going to leave a huge carbon footprint and it is important to reduce emissions. That is why it is important to consume the local product, the European product. This is also the European Green Deal. This also helps reduce climate change.