It’s Time to Take Action

The year is 2100.
Time has run out.

The air is thick with smog. The ice caps have melted. Roads are submerged where sea defences cannot shield the land from rising water levels. The eco-systems, essential to our survival, struggle to adapt to the new environment. Polar bears are extinct. The future generations of humankind fear that they will be next.

If you could turn back the clock, what changes can you and will you make? Will you swap the disposable plastic bag for a reusable one?

The Green Summit at the United Nations Conference Centre, Bangkok will ignite your passion to fight for a greener future and allow you to join thousands of other young people to take action around the world. You will emerge as a Humanitarian Affairs Green Ambassador and motivate others to make a difference. You will be inspired to build a future for your generation as well as a future for the next generation.

It’s time. Let’s turn the tide on
climate change.

Emily Ainscough

University College London

Something positive that we have seen a change in the last decade is the ubiquity of the climate message. The flip side, however, is that now politicians and CEOs can no longer legitimately claim that their inertia is down to ignorance or a lack of scientific consensus; so, the fact that very little has changed is a direct reflection of their ambivalence.

We are being told, in no uncertain terms, that the protection of this planet is not a priority – because it does not make money for people alive right now, and this is apparently the only worthwhile venture of politics. But people’s current leaders won’t be in power forever. It is imperative that we work hard now, to ensure that the next generation of leaders is less self-centred.

When young people get together from across the world, amalgamating their knowledge from different languages, cultures and observations, and then again dissipate, taking their learnings back home to spread those ripples further, we are raising a new generation to be stewards for the future of this planet. The Green Summit will speak not just to future politicians, but to teachers, parents, scientists and workers who will take this message of action and hope into their respective fields and make their voices heard on all rungs of the ladder; that this isn’t okay. That something’s got to change.