Young people will demand action from U.N. climate conference

Representatives of nations around the world will gather in Katowice, Poland, next month to negotiate the implementation of the Paris climate agreement — the global climate accord lauded to bring an end to the fossil-fuel era. The stakes couldn’t be higher for me or my generation.

As I write this, rescue workers are still sorting through the ashes of Paradise, the Butte County town destroyed by the Camp Fire. This is what climate change looks like. And that’s why I am co-leading a delegation of U.S. youth to push back on the Trump administration’s climate change denial and to fight for real solutions to the climate crisis.

There is no solution to climate change that includes continued expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure. Yet, at the U.N. Climate Change Conference next week, White House officials plan to host a panel on the role of coal and natural gas as a solution to climate change. For two years, the Trump administration has done everything in its power to roll back critical health and environmental safeguards on coal, oil and gas — from extraction to combustion. The administration also tried to downplay the climate risks outlined in a major U.S. climate report by releasing it on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

It’s not just Republicans who are failing my generation. Jerry Brown approved permits for more than 20,000 new oil and gas wells during his eight years as California governor. Meanwhile, he trots the globe evangelizing for more ambitious action to stop global warming. Real climate leadership would mean leaving oil and gas in the ground in California.

On Nov. 12, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby said, “We’re in extreme climate change right now,” and this is with only 1 degree Celsius of warming. Without dramatic change, we are accelerating toward 3 degrees of warming and more climate chaos.

If official U.S. negotiators continue to block progress at the climate talks next week in Poland, and if we continue to drill for oil here in California, it will cause more cities like Paradise to be lost to the ravages of a warming world and more days of unhealthy, smoke-filled air for Californians.

I’m traveling to Poland with a youth-led group called SustainUS. The latest U.N. climate report says we have 12 years to radically transform every part of our society and economy — transportation, energy generation, food, manufacturing — away from fossil fuels to clean energy. We don’t have a moment to waste.

As the Trump administration slashes climate policies, our delegation is going to the U.N. conference to hold the United States accountable for its actions. We are going because our friends and allies from other nations are fighting to ensure the set of policies for how to implement the Paris Agreement will be as strong as science and justice demand of us. For some, their entire culture depends on it.

We don’t expect the United States to suddenly take leadership on climate change in Poland. We are, however, going to demonstrate our resilience as young people, as we are fighting every day at home to to build a more just world.

Fighting for climate justice alongside other youth gives me hope and connects me to the very real possibility that things can get better, that we can transition our economy off fossil fuels and toward sustainable, renewable sources of energy.