Tell leaders at the OAS: take action on climate change!
Where: Humanities Undercroft, adjacent to JFK Food Court on the UWI Campus, St. Augustine, Trinidad
When: Thursday, April 16th. Events starts at 2pm, speeches and the photo opportunity will happen at 3:00pm
Contact: Mariama Branker, cfc@cyen.org or Kelly Blynn, kelly@350.org. Cell: 796-4770
A day before the official OAS Summit begins, young people concerned with how climate change will impact the future of Latin America and the Caribbean will gather on the UWI Campus to deliver hundreds of messages from youth around the region, asking their heads of state to make climate change a primary issue at the Summit. With the economic crisis predicted to take center stage at the Summit, young people want to ensure that leaders at the OAS make strong commitments to take action on climate change, an issue they see as being a far more serious threat to their future than the near-term threat of the economic crisis.
Come and add your own message on our giant message board, read and watch those that have been submitted, and listen to some music on campus. There will be speeches by the leaders of CYEN in Trinidad and Tobago, 350.org, and UWI students about the need for action on climate change. There will serve as a symbolic and visual delivery of hundreds of messages from youth around the region to the leaders at the OAS summit.
“We believe that the consequences of the financial crisis will be nothing compared to the climate impacts in the event that we don't heed any of the warnings we see now”, said Jose Buitrago of Colombia in a message sent to the OAS leaders. Time is getting short for action on climate change, as scientific reports about climate change grow worse, and as world leaders prepare to create a new global treaty on global warming at the end of 2009 in Copenhagen. Tonia Skeete of Barbados laments that “Caribbean governments have created policies which are fragmented and exclude young people from the very decisions which will impact our future.” To safeguard the future of Caribbean and Latin American youth, they must play a key part in decision making processes that impact them, especially the process to create a new global climate treaty in Copenhagen. The OAS Summit is a key opportunity to shape the region’s response to an issue that will have dire impacts if urgent action is not taken.
350.org is an international grassroots campaign on climate change. Its primary goals are to raise awareness and build a movement around the need for a global treaty that puts the planet back on track to 350ppm CO2, the agreed-upon safe level of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. CYEN is the largest youth environmental network in the Caribbean and spans 15 territories. Its aim is to address any issues related to the environment as well as other pertinent social problems such as poverty alleviation and HIV/Aids. 350.org and CYEN have partnered to work together this year to raise the issue of climate change in the Caribbean, and to raise awareness globally of the Caribbean’s vulnerability to climate change.
