The voice of a generation

World Wide Generation
Nov 8 · 5 min read

By: Paulina Ondarza Dovali

At the start of the much anticipated 2019 UN Climate Action Summit, there was one speech I and most of the world were eager to watch. It was the voice of a new generation; courageous, bold, unapologetic, speaking the ugly truth of our world today while knowing the whole world would be watching.

For someone with a background in international relations who can only aspire to have access to such a globally influential forum, the emotional speech of the 16-year-old Greta Thunberg left me speechless.

“We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”

Her speech was met with much criticism from climate change sceptics with personal gain in “business as usual”, wishing to divert focus from her message. She has been dubbed “manipulated” by the politically motivated adults that back her, infantilised for being “hysterical” and speaking about “something she does not understand”. Critics have gone so low as to discredit the validity of her claims because of her mental health. These so-called rational, mature and “fact-driven” critics don’t seem to like hard science. This backlash comes as no surprise when in this same sphere, climate change denialists are embodied by outspoken political leaders who claim “climate change is a hoax”, the Paris Agreement is a “terrible deal” and they’re focused on making things “great again”.

What makes her message “the most powerful speech I’ve ever seen” (Dr Saleemul Huq: of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development) is that her outrage; unfiltered and emotional, achieved what the Climate Change and Sustainable Development agenda desperately needed; a restored sense of urgency and call to action — becoming the voice of a generation of change.

Her message has three important takeaways.

1. The future is not ours, it is theirs

History has shown the power of activist movements is often led by young leaders who decided enough was enough. The Civil Rights Movement, the Tiananmen Square Protests, Vietnam War protests, the social media-led mobilisation of masses and information during the Arab Spring, are some to name a few.

“This is all wrong, I shouldn’t be standing here” — she said. Despite what critics may say about the face of a teenager addressing a highly politicised agenda, she is right. She shouldn’t be standing there, raising her voice to an issue that has been real for decades. The fact that she has sparked a movement among young activists to bring this subject matter ‘home’, highlights one of the most serious impacts of failing to take Climate Change seriously; the survival of their generation is at risk.

New and existing generations will be faced with a steep progress decline on all development hardships that our generation and generations before have worked hard to overcome. These generations, who have grown accustomed to high economic growth and resource abundance, will be faced with famine, water scarcity, poverty, disease and further displacement in addition to environmental challenges that may fall beyond their control. We face the opportunity to control this inevitable decline if we act now.

“The eyes of all future generations are upon you…Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not.”

2. The science is clear

There is sufficient and alarming evidence to incite immediate action across all actors in our ecosystem, governments, corporates, financial institutions, public and private organisations, down to the everyday person to prevent and remediate the further decline of our planet.

According to a recent report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the rate of global change in nature during the past 50 years is unprecedented in human history. The direct drivers of this change can be accounted to changes in land and sea use, exploitation of resources and organisms, climate change, pollution and an “invasion of alien species”, resulting from a range of causes underpinned by our social values, behaviours, production and consumption patterns.

To date, climate change’s effect on the agricultural sector is threatening to reverse gains in ending hunger and malnutrition. In 2018, the number of undernourished people was estimated to have increased to 821 million from 811 million in 2017, that is 1 out of 9 people hungry worldwide (WHO, 2018). In 2018, disasters such as drought, floods and catastrophic storms (including hurricanes and cyclones), were responsible for the greatest number of displacements (IOM). Out of the 17.1 million Internally Displaced People (IDPs) tracked by the IOM in 2018, 2 million were displaced due to weather and climate-related events.

The IPBEs report further estimates that out of the 8 million species of animals and plants on Earth, 1 million species are threatened with extinction within decades. Overall, climate-related risks to human security, health, livelihoods, food, water and economic growth are estimated to increase as global temperatures rise by 1.5°C and increase further with 2°C.

3. We must act now

We at World Wide Generation (WWG) agree with the urgency of this matter and the need for clear and concrete action now. The time for dialogue is over. WWG, like many of our mission-aligned partners, are seriously committed to moving the dial forward. Empowered by our mission, we have developed G17Eco; an interoperable platform named after the 17th goal on the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (partnership for the goals) and Eco meaning ‘home’.

The G17Eco platform is underpinned by Distributed Ledger Technology that can monitor, report and verify any project, organisation or fund against the SDGs from beneficiary level right up to big-picture contributions to the SDGs. By leveraging 4IR technologies, G17Eco transforms sustainability measurement by bringing immutability and provenance of data; meaning greater transparency, accountability and efficiency.

This October WWG, together with the City of London Corporation, launched an industry-wide Pilot with leading organisations in finance, private and public corporations, assurance and sustainability ratings to test and refine G17Eco’s capabilities ahead of a global launch in 2020.

In the words of Nelson Mandela, “Sometimes, it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that generation”. Greta is one of many voices along with World Wide Generation who are ready to be great.

Originally published on worldwidegeneration.co

We are a global facilitator uniting Corporates, Government, Financial Institutions and the Civil Society to deliver the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

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