THE CLIMATE CHALLENGE
THE UK’s only children’s newspaper, First News, and JPI are working together to get the voices of UK children heard at COP26. We are inviting children to send in questions to be asked at a Downing Street press conference just for kids, focused on the climate challenge the world faces. And we will be publishing their comments, messages for world leaders and ideas for solutions in First News and JPI newspapers during next month’s COP26 conference in Glasgow, when world leaders will gather to make decisions about action that must be taken for the future of the Earth.
We are also partnering with Sky Kids, who have already heard from six children on each of the six inhabited continents across the world, about how their lives are already being affected by climate change. In the documentary, COP26: In Your Hands, they ask world leaders: “Are you listening?” HRH The Prince of Wales introduces the film. In a message to children, he says: “I’m old enough to have a grandson who might read First News. Like you, he’s learning about how climate change is causing the big storms, the floods, the droughts and food shortages we are seeing around the world.
“When I was his age, people had no idea about the damage they were doing. By the time I was a teenager, I started to see that, if we didn’t stop polluting out planet, we would face a very dangerous future indeed. This is why I’ve spent so much of my life trying to warn that we have to operate in ways which make nature thrive, not suffer.
“Nature’s systems are beautifully complicated. Things like oxygen and sunlight enable billions of tiny creatures in the soil and sea to sustain the lives of every animal, plant and person. It’s one big, joined-up system where different cycles work together to keep the whole system healthy. And, nothing is wasted. In nature, what we call waste becomes food for the next cycle. But, if you break the cycle, it cannot turn and that is what we have done.
“We have forgotten that we have to put back into nature as much as we take out – that we have to sustain nature so that nature can sustain us.
“If you take a look at my big plan for nature and the planet, which I published recently, you’ll see what I mean. It’s called the Terra Carta and it’s a set of principles and actions that people and businesses can follow to help nature restore its balance, so that all those cycles turn properly again long into the future.
“And, you have an important part to play in this. That’s why I’m delighted that, in this film, we’ll be hearing from six young climate activists from six different continents who have all seen the impact of climate change where they live, and have ideas about what needs to be done to help the planet become healthy again. Their voices matter and so does yours. Your future depends upon the future of the planet. But, only if we all work hard now to make our planet healthy again will your future be healthy, too.”