Climate Change: Too Hot To Handle?

Translation: Perhaps I should look on the bright side and move to the

First of all, let me confess that this area has never been of any major interest to me. In any international affairs simulation, I fit nicely into the category of girls who discuss such things as development and humanitarian initiatives while the boys debate who to nuke and who to make nice with in the room next door. Yes, I know this is a massive stereotype, but what is perhaps more noteworthy here is that climate change fits into neither category. It doesn't have the altruism and righteousness of most social issues, nor the thrill of conflict resolution, and that seems to work against it.

When I recently received an invitation to join the youth caucus at the United Nation's Framework Convention on Climate Change [1], to be held in December of this year, I was therefore a little dubious. Sure, I am concerned about the matter, if only because the moment the water starts rising my home country of the Netherlands is rather doomed. This much I know and it worries me. The UNFCCC in itself has some appeal to me because the youth caucus will be a massive one, but this shouldn't be my main reason for going. I decided to examine what I already knew a little further.

It shocked me, to be honest. Having dug into the revision-addled depths of my brain, I find that I mostly drew a rather disconcerting blank on this issue. Admitted, it has never been my forte, but surely I should know a little more than I do. I count myself as a fairly well informed politics student – how the heck do I not get any further than the self-absorbed ramblings of Al Gore?

Desperate, I turned to Lena Jeha, a friend from the United Nations Association here at York Uni and a walking encyclopaedia on everything climate related. Seems I am not the only one who is a bit of a dimwit on the subject: according to Lena, “[simply put], governments, business and citizens are not taking the issue seriously enough. With the lack of scientific understanding by the general public, the economic trade-offs are far too large to stimulate the changes required.” I see – the good old 'we are concerned yet do not really know or care why and thus do not act upon it'. It is something I have encountered before and have occasionally scorned people over.

Ouch.

As Lena pointed out to me, Earth has survived far worse than what is currently happening to it. Humans are another matter entirely. Climate change in itself is worrying enough – rising sea levels, deadly weather patterns, etc. - but it is also set to intensify other problems like water poverty, something the United Nations has already declared to be the biggest threat to modern society. In fact, I seem to remember several people at the World Water Forum – grassroot workers and government officials alike – predict in hushed tones that water scarcity might very well end up being the cause for World War Three.

So yes, we should definitely care, and we should care enough to explore the issue further and press our governments to act on it and hold them accountable when they do not. I urge you all to do that extra little bit of research – goodness knows it opened my eyes. The fact that the youth caucus at the UNFCCC will be as big as it will be is promising indeed, but, as always, we need more than that. At this point, a global movement is required [2] if we are to save our descendants and even ourselves from this oncoming storm.

As for my own participation in that conference? Turns out it will likely depend on whether or not I have exams that week. Such is the life of a university student. Oh well – there's always the UN's Committee on Sustainable Development next spring...

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