This year’s UN Climate Change Conference, COP26, took place in Glasgow, Scotland from October 31st to November 12th. The main aim of the conference this year was for countries, Parties to the Paris Agreement, to submit more ambitions Nationally Determined Contributions to rapidly reduce emissions, and to increase the ambition of national and international climate action overall. Student Energy aimed to bring a diverse global youth delegation to the conference, with the goal of advocating for young people to be meaningfully included in decision-making, and for mobilizing finance to support youth-led work.

Here’s a recap of our activities:

November 11:  Meredith Adler on the New York Times Climate Hub

Meredith Adler joined Apolitical C.E.O Robyn Scott, HALO Urban Regeneration Founder Marie Macklin, Danone C.E.O Emmanuel Faber, and Project InsideOut Founder Renée Lertzman for a New York Times Climate Hub Panel Green Upskilling: The Next Generation of Climate Skills and Leadership.

In the panel, Meredith discussed what skills are required for advancing climate action, and what are organizations doing to develop them. If deployed properly, how much of a difference can this upskilling actually make?

“We’re hearing governments and others talk about, “oh good news, this policy is going to produce x amount of jobs.” You know, the IEA says the energy transition will result in about 55 million jobs when you look at all of it together, but really very few people are focused on skill building. There’s lots of announcements around the money for deployment, but not around who will be the deployers. 

The thing that [Student Energy] works to do is how do you do training at a scale that’s globally applicable. We work really hard on teaching problem-solving skills, teaching deployment skills, and the things that people need to know in order to be able to learn and culturally adapt to what needs to happen.” — Meredith Adler, Executive Director, Student Energy

November 10: COP Resilience Hub: Latin American findings from GYEO

Student Energy hosted a dynamic session sharing the perspectives of 5000+ Latin American and Caribbean youth from the Global Youth Energy Outlook, which surveyed over 40,000 youth around the world. The panel discussed how the energy transition can be made possible in a diverse and challenging region such as Latin America.

November 5: Women Leading on Climate

Student Energy supported Catherine McKenna, former Minister for Environment and Climate Change in Canada, in launching the Women Leading on Climate initiative. The effort seeks to recognize the leadership of women and girls in advancing progress on climate action in communities around the world, broaden the network of women and girls engaged in discussions around the environment and climate change, and raise awareness of the disproportionate impact of climate change on women and girls globally and discuss innovative solutions and share best practices.

On Friday, November 5th, during COP26’s Youth and Public Empowerment Day, women and girls from around the world flooded COP26 with videos on social media using the hashtag #WomenLeadingOnClimate. This included videos from New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Stanford University Managing Director Alicia Steiger, and women, girls, and gender minorities from around the world who are acting on climate.

“Student Energy has a network of over 50,000 youth, half of whom are young women. We know how important it is to provide the funding, coaching and skills training they need to lead on energy and climate solutions. We look forward to continuing to partner with Women Leading on Climate to make sure the next generation of climate leaders is ready to implement the solutions we need and curb the impact of climate change on women globally.” — Meredith Adler, Executive Director, Student Energy

https://womenleadingonclimate.com/

November 5: Breaking Barriers for Youth to lead on SDG7

Breaking Barriers for Youth to Lead on SDG7 was a side event at the SDG 7 Pavilion hosted by Student Energy and featuring UNDP Youth Focal Point for Energy and Community of Practice Facilitator on Energy, Caroline Tresise.

“We’re not only underrepresented, we’re underestimated. If we want to achieve #SDG7 we have to build capacity for youth”

– Eduarda Zoghbi 

November 5: Energy Empowering Employment

Student Energy’s Executive Director Meredith Adler was a speaker on Power for All’s panel at the SDG 7 Pavilion #PoweringJobs and scaling the Distributed Renewable Energy sector. The panel featured industry experts from GOGLA, Student Energy and CEEW. Through a facilitated dialogue, informed by the Powering Jobs study Power for All, aims to change the limited understanding of job opportunities within DRE.

“The sector is changing so fast that the main thing you can learn is how to learn.” –Meredith Adler, Executive Director, Student Energy

November 4: GYEO Launch

Student Energy launched the Global Youth Energy Outlook (GYEO) report on November 04, 2021. Featuring global and regionally specific insights collected from 40,000+ young people globally, the GYEO is a powerful data-backed advocacy tool for both youth advocates and decision-makers.

Youth are calling for leaders in all sectors to move beyond tokenism and engage with youth through equitable and meaningful partnerships. How can decision-makers work with youth to accelerate climate action and the sustainable energy transition? The Global Youth Energy Outlook presents insights on what young people envision for their energy future and how they want to work with decision-makers to get there.

The launch event broke down key insights from Student Energy’s youth-led research, and includes a tangible guide for decision-makers on how to work with young people in an equitable way. 

The GYEO Launch event featured an intergenerational and global lineup of speakers who outlined how the GYEO can be effectively mobilized at the grassroots level, within government institutions, and in the energy sector: Featured speakers included:

• Student Energy’s youth Regional Coordinators who have been leading this research in their regions throughout 2020 and 2021
• Representatives from several national governments, including Canada, Denmark, and Sweden
• Representatives from companies in the energy sector, such as DNV

“Just look at us, young people coming together from every region to engage over 42,000 of our peers to show what young people globally want from a sustainable energy future” – Arsenii Kirgizov-Barskii, Regional Coordinator for Eastern Europe and Central Asia

Watch the livestream recording.

Discover the emergent findings from the report.

November 02: A business-Led Climate Resilience Initiative: Turning Aspirations into Action https://www.woodplc.com/cop26/register-for-access

November 02: BBC Scotland Debate Night: COP26 Special 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00118r8

All of COP:SDG 7 Pavilion for the People and for the Planet at COP26

After 2 weeks of negotiation, let’s review some of the key announcements that came out of COP;

5 Key Announcements from COP26

From Nature-Based Solutions, fossil fuel phase-out to clean energy investments, a lot of important topics were on the table at COP26 – but what did countries actually commit to? Let’s look at 5 key areas where some announcements were made:

Coal & Fossil Fuel Funding

Over 40 countries pledged to phase out coal in a new deal, titled the Global Coal to Clean Power Transition Statement, and covering 267 GW of operating coal capacity. Notable absentees from the pledge are China and India which accounts for 54.3% and 11.6% of global coal consumption (BP’S world energy statistics) respectively. The United States which accounts for 6.1% also abstained from the deal.

Also, 20 countries including the United States, Canada and UK have pledged to stop funding fossil fuel projects abroad. The details of this deal also include oil and gas projects, making it the first of its kind. Coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, accounts for 40% of emissions, with oil second with 32% emissions.

Deforestation

The first headline agreement from COP26 is the pledge to end deforestation by 2030. Over 100 hundred world leaders pledged to end deforestation in the Glasgow Leaders ‘Declaration of Forest and Land Use’. The pledge is backed by a $19.2bn (£14bn) in public and private funds. The over 100 signatories of the pledge represents  85% of the world forest, and some of the funding will help developing countries restore degraded land and tackle wildfire. Indigenous communities will also receive funding and support.

Methane

The Global Methane Pledge, an initiative launched by the U.S. and European Union have received significant backing from over 100 countries (representing 70% of the global economy and nearly half of anthropogenic methane emissions) to cut their methane emissions 30% by 2030. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas and is 84 times more powerful at warming the climate compared to C02 over the short term. According to European Union estimates, a 30% cut in methane emissions could reduce projected warming by 0.2 degrees Celsius.

Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)

Prior to COP26, 140 countries (nearly 70% of Paris Agreement signatories) submitted a new or updated NDC. A notable update at COP26 was India announcement of updated climate targets. The Southeast Asia nation pledged to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2070. India is the world’s third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases and this new ambitious target will bring the country in line with other top emitters climate targets. Other notable NDCs announcement submitted closely prior to COP26 includes South Africa and Brazils updated commitment.

Climate Finance

With new pledges and commitments announced, a notable failure stands out—the non-fulfilment of world leaders to keep to their promise of making $100 billion available for developing nations. At the 2009 UN climate summit in Copenhagen, developed nations promised to provide $100 billion a year to less developed countries to help mitigate and adapt to the impact of climate change. This commitment is yet to be achieved. Some takeaways from finance at COP26 includes the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net-Zero, a deal by financial institutions to move $130 trillion of funds under control to recipient committed to net-zero pledge by 2050. Public donations from billionaires amounted to $2.5 billion with an enormous chunk ($2 billion) coming from Jeff Bezos’s Earth Fund. The Ford Foundation and Gates Foundation also made donations in agriculture research and support for indigenous rights groups, respectively. Other side events clean energy investment and donations are also reported.

How inclusive was COP26?

“The most important conversations are happening outside of COP26, both in the streets and other events and this conversation are happening between scientists, professionals, activists and organizers across the globe. Yet all the policies that can lead to actual policy changes and financial contributions are happening behind closed doors…” – Alaina Wood.

More than 30, 000 people representing over 195 countries attended the COP26. This also includes diverse high-level meetings and side events. While some, including the United Kingdom – the host of COP26 have described the event as the most inclusive COP yet, others have decried the lack of representation from developing countries that couldn’t attend due to COVID inequities and the absence of young leaders and Indigenous groups at the decision-making table.

COP26 Background

Like many UN processes, the COP process comes with a lot of acronyms and jargon – we’ve included this overview to help break down the basics:

What is COP26?

‘COP’ stands for the Conference of Parties and is the supreme governing and decision-making body responsible for monitoring and reviewing the implementation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Each country that has signed on as a “Party” to the UNFCCC is represented at COP, which is also used to refer to the annual United Nations climate change conference, with 2021 being the 26th annual meeting. In 2015, the Paris Agreement, an international treaty on climate change was adopted by 191 countries (“Parties”), as the successor to the Kyoto Protocol. Under the Paris Agreement, every country must strengthen their climate commitments every five years. Faced with looming disasters and scientific reports of the worsening climate, this makes COP26 critical.

What was the aim of COP26?

Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are non-binding climate targets and commitments to reduce greenhouse emissions. Under the Paris Agreement, each country decides its goals and actions. This is sometimes insufficient, making It difficult to achieve the aspirations of the Paris accord. Besides NDCs, climate finance, mitigation and adaptation are some of the important priorities and focuses of COP26. There are also ‘sectoral agreements’, these are the ‘coalitions of the willing’ and technically are not part of COP since it isn’t an agreement among the 196 countries signature to the agreement. The sectoral agreements are focused on deforestation, climate finance, fossil fuel phase-out among others.

We adapted our plans and programs in a big way this year, and we couldn’t have done it without you – thank
you. Whether you learned about Student Energy for the first time this year, joined us as a partner or a program participant, or cheered us on through social media, your support allows us to continue making an impact. Here are some of the things we accomplished this year:

• We grew our network to 47 chapters in 22 countries, who engaged over 16,000 youth in 2020.
• We launched the first Leaders Fellowship cohort in January, and ended the year with 47 global teams completing their 10-month program. We’re set for an even bigger year in 2021, as we bring in 90+ teams for the second cohort in response to overwhelming demand for the program.
• The Global Youth Outlook survey is now available in eight languages, and we are working with a global youth team of Regional Coordinators to reach 50,000 young people in the lead-up to COP26.
• Our Energy System Map and video users skyrocketed this year, reaching a total of 10 Million+ users, with 2.5 million of those just in 2020, as more students and educators turned to digital energy learning resources. This year, we launched the  new Energy System Map at  www.studentenergy.org, featuring the new “Influences” layer, to help young people understand how to change the energy system.
• We provided $120,000 in funding directly to young people to support them with honorariums and awards to help them take  action on energy, and are working on an even more ambitious direct-to-youth funding strategy for 2021.
• To date Student Energy has now partnered with 90 organizations to make space for youth, we’ve developed new models for intergenerational collaboration that will continue to expand through 2021.
• Student Energy’s team grew from 9 to 25 staff members
• As a youth-led organization, we are excited to see that youth leadership for bold, just climate action is being recognized more often on the global stage. We are hopeful for this recognition to grow into more meaningful support and resources for youth-led climate and energy solutions in 2021. To make this happen, we think there’s a lot more that organizations, governments, and those in power need to do to fully empower and equip youth with the tools and resources they need to take action.