Lessons From COP With Ireland’s Climate Youth Delegate Beth Doherty
lessons from COP with Ireland’s Climate Youth Delegate, beth doherty
Ireland’s Climate Youth Delegate, Beth Doherty, has been involved in climate advocacy since the age of 15. She has grown from a local climate strike organiser to an international advocate.
Her role in COP processes has taught her many things. She sees a change in the role of young people since the school strikes.
“There’s recognition that young people are very important and I think that has particularly grown since the schools strike movement.”
But she knows too that,
“Young people are obviously really under-represented as the negotiators themselves but I think even within the general space of COP I think there are a lot of barriers for young people to even get there in the first instance. It’s incredibly expensive. There’s visa barriers. Badges can be really difficult. All of those barriers are then exacerbated if you’re a young person from a most affected area, from the Global South for instance.”
While this may seem hopeless, she clarifies that,
“Young people are attending COP. They are there. But they are less resourced and less supported than some other powerful actors in the COP space and … aren’t given as much of an institutional voice as other actors.”
When asked what would remedy this concerning situation, she answers that,
“There are things you can do within the COP process itself. Those are things such as upskilling young people, giving young people resources to get to grips with the COP process. There are some really successful programmes that have done this, like the Youth Negotiators Academy.”
But ultimately this isn’t enough.
“It’s about embedding young people in processes and having them as co-designers of those processes.”
She understands the climate anxiety that many young people feel and has felt that hopelessness herself. She emphasises that,
“The climate crisis is so global and it’s so structural. It requires us to change almost absolutely everything about how our society runs. There’s a huge amount of collective power in young people.
The biggest cure to [climate anxiety] is organising collectively. When you meet with other people who feel the same way and you organise as a collective and you have that shared power, that is a much better anecdote for that feeling of overwhelm.”
“At the grassroots level, intergenerational collaboration is essential. Even on the community level, it’s talking to people who are older and learn about their life experiences.”
We should talk to,
“Older people who may have been involved in advocacy. Learning about what’s happened in the past, what’s worked and what didn’t work…Every age group brings a different perspective and has different ideas and maybe different priorities from different experiences. It’s about bringing all of that together and getting a real cross society and cross generational idea of what’s going on.”
“My advice would really be to start having conversations, find a local group, see how you can help. Everyone has an individual skill set that can really be useful. Whether you’re an artist, a researcher, an organiser, someone who’s really good at talking to people, someone who’s really good at writing things up. There are so many different skills that people have that can be useful here. It is really just trying to find groups, talking to them, and seeing how you can contribute. Bit by bit you will realise that you can make a change with this, especially when you work with others.”
Interview and article by Ciara O’Brien
Ciara O’Brien is an engaged youth advocate in Ireland and internationally. They are studying Philosophy, Political Science, Economics and Sociology (PPES) at Trinity College Dublin.
Discover more about Ciara.
