COP30 should listen to the youth and children - and not only ensure effective resolutions for us, but also made by us, as active agents of change. During the first day of COP, this is the key message we started off with, which will also be the Children and Youth Pavilion’s base for the following days. 

The Children & Youth Pavilion was envisioned with the aim of securing a safe and empowering space for young people at COP. Some years ago, the prospect of a climate change conference full of civil society participation, especially the youth, was unimaginable. Slowly, we have been breaking through this wall, and, despite many advances, such as the CYP launching at COP27, there are still many challenges ahead. 

Today, the sessions held at the CYP demonstrated how we can actively resist and fight these barriers, in favour of an inclusive, intersectional and accessible space for all. From energy to health, grassroots organising, learning about different backgrounds and taking care of our mental health, the Pavilion has already had a wide range of talks that act as resources for young people to face this COP - and many others. 

Just like Francisco Activista said at our session “COP for Children: Mainstreaming Children’s Rights Into Climate Action in COP30”, we need unified and collective action against the climate crisis, that also comes from “eco hope”. The youth, united, bring unique and equally important perspectives that must be taken as a priority for those negotiating at COP. 

During COP30, at the Children & Youth Pavilion, we will gather all efforts to galvanise this collective action and make them hear us, because there should be nothing about us without us. Join us! 

“I am not just talking about loss and damage, I am living loss and damage”, said Pedro Jesus, speaker at the panel “Youth Leadership in Loss, Damage and Resilience: A Testimony from Brazil’s Flood Zone”. His story was one of the many portrayed on the second day of COP30 at the Children & Youth Pavilion. 

During COP, it is almost as if there were two different realities: the youth, telling their stories, voicing their demands and will of change, and the ones negotiating their lives behind closed doors. This gap is damaging to the climate discussion and to young people’s lives, since we all know that there is no better way of learning other realities than listening directly to those who live them. 

Today, the young speakers and participants at the CYP demonstrated the importance of active listening and solidarity, and intersectional climate policies was the key concept that united the sessions. We heard from young negotiators about the importance of being empowered to take part in climate negotiations, and also how to decipher their complex communication and have a big impact. We also learned that it is especially urgent to listen to youth negotiators battling the impacts of the climate crisis on a daily basis in their communities, always bearing in mind that for groups such as the LGBTQIA+ community, children and environmental defenders, the challenges and threats are multiplied - hence the need of occupying decision making spaces. Just like Jarê Pinagé said in the session “LGBTQI+ Voices in Climate Decision Making”, it is important to bring the perspectives of their realities and turn them into common policies. 

MUTIRÃO means when people join forces to do what would be impossible to do alone. It’s about “unity, hands-on and community in action”. On the third day of COP30, at the Children and Youth Pavilion, we saw its effect in full strength during powerful panels that leveled up our energy and made us hopeful that another world is possible because we’re doing this TOGETHER.

Despite it only being the beginning of the Conference, we already saw how the youth, organised and coordinated, can galvanise real change and move forward narratives that otherwise would be forgotten. We started off the day learning about Youth Perspectives on Agriculture, Climate and COP30, and, since Gender was one of the day’s themes at COP30, we also had a chance to listen to an insightful session about Empowering Young Female Voices for Climate Leadership in Brazil. At the Children and Youth Pavilion, all perspectives are welcomed and considered to be of utmost importance to the climate discussion. This is also why it has become a place for knowledge exchange and learning about other agendas by the youth and for the youth. 

There is nowhere better to hear about these perspectives other than directly from people who share different realities and backgrounds. When we talk about the climate crisis, we are not just talking about environmental impacts, but also about the plethora of social issues that cross their paths and are related to the roots of the crisis. Intersectionality plays a big role in understanding the dimensions in which people are affected and how to support them. For this, we were glad to host the high-level panel that gathered the COP30 and COP29's Presidency Youth Climate Champions, and different Brazilian government representatives, such as Marina Silva, the Minister of the Environment, Célia Xakriabá, Indigenous Federal Deputy, Rosa Amorim, State Deputy, and Tainá de Paula, Environmental Secretary for Rio de Janeiro. 

Coming from different backgrounds, each one presented a unique point of view about the obstacles their regions face and how the youth can get involved in tackling them. They also gave us the energy and strength to keep going despite all odds. As Tainá de Paula said, “We won’t resign and think everything is alright just because of backdoors discussions. You are the fight, you carry the agendas that high-level representatives can’t always put forward. Therefore, you are the most important voices of this process”. 

With this big Mutirão happening at the Children and Youth Pavilion, we are sure the voices and messages represented here will resonate within us for a long time and create real long-term change.

Climate education is one of the biggest pillars which sustain good and effective climate policies. Since the beginning of childhood, the narratives we learn at school can play a decisive role in shaping our actions throughout our teenage years and adulthood, as well as inaction. The way we perceive the climate crisis is no different. Many of us are unaware of its effects and dimensions because we have not been provided with comprehensive climate education. Luckily, this is a vacuum that is being filled step by step. 

On the fourth day of COP30, the Children and Youth Pavilion put education in the spotlight. Not only its importance for the youth was discussed, but we heard demands on how to improve it directly from them, showing that one of the various benefits of involving children in the climate space is that they, who are still studying, are able to identify gaps in education that adults cannot. More than identifying, they are empowered to put their demands in practice both in their schools and communities, like the session “From Classrooms to Communities: Children & Youth Powering Climate Solutions” highlighted, reinforced by “Education for Climate Futures: Empowering Children and Young People as Global Climate Leaders”. 

The 13th was also designated “Justice and Human Rights” day, and the CYP followed along. It is impossible to tackle the climate crisis if not by fighting for climate justice, which recognises that, in order to support vulnerable communities, we must learn about their realities in a holistic mindset. Like Criseyda Roman said, in the session “Construyendo Paz Desde los Territorios:  El Rol de las Juventudes en Acción”, how can we address the climate crisis amongst those who are still fighting for a daily food plate? This is what climate justice is all about. It is also important to recognise the role of Human Rights, especially in the most affected countries, which are also the most dangerous for activists, who put their lives at risk daily. This is not by coincidence, since, as we have been repeatedly saying, the roots of the system that obligates people to become activists and put them in danger are the same. However, when addressing this, we must be careful not to dictate what change should look like for everyone, since there is a common habit of observing the climate crisis through Western eyes. However, as said in the panel “Children and Youth: Cultural Paths to Resilience”, “We should not look at the West as a standard of excellence” - the more multiple perspectives, the better. 

“Where is the fund for adaptation?” was the big question asked in the session “Community at the Forefront to Address Loss and Damage”. On the 5th day of COP, at the Children and Youth Pavilion, the panels voiced a demand that the youth has been repeating for years on end: We need money for just, equitable and efficient adaptation solutions. These adaptation plans must recognise the severity of the climate crisis impacts hitting worldwide populations on a daily basis, while also not forgetting that we are not in the same boat. 

The climate crisis wreaks havoc the most in the countries and communities that contribute least to the climate crisis, and where the funds for adaptation are the hardest to achieve. As we learned in the session abovementioned, “Community at the Forefront to Address Loss and Damage”, “more than 80% of the least developed countries don’t have a NAP”. A NAP, or National Adaptation Plan, is a strategy that analyses climate risks, adaptation priorities and finance. At COP30, countries are expected to deliver revised NAPs, as well as to formalize the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), after its adoption at COP28, and ideally operationalize it, concluding the UAE-Belém Work Programme. Experts have also developed a list of 100 indicators to help with the measurement of adaptation progress, which will support the development of important strategies at COP30, making it the “implementation COP”, despite the dependence on finance.

For local communities to benefit from comprehensive adaptation plans, it is important to make sure that the social and political structures at the local level are restructured, and the governments should thoroughly listen to youth directions and inputs, two topics that were largely debated at the CYP. 

During the first week of COP, we have seen multiple youth gathered at the Children and Youth Pavilion to discuss their backgrounds, demands and ambitions, in sessions that enriched our perspectives about the climate crisis. As emphasised throughout our program, the youth agenda in climate negotiations is built collectively, supporting the larger climate justice movement, and taking inspiration from different grassroots organising. This is why our Saturday program had a different touch: besides hosting great sessions as usual, our team also took part in the Global Climate March, to observe and learn about how young people across the world are making their demands heard from the ground-up, and to ask them how they perceive the youth participation in these spaces. 

There were various answers, but one of them was almost an absolute consensus: the youth are facing the consequences of a crisis it did not create. If not for us, who will live through the harshest impacts of the climate crisis, who will step up? We have the agency and the urgency of speaking up for ourselves and making our voices heard through creative and innovative tools, combined with ancient and traditional knowledge. 

At the Children and Youth Pavilion, we see that the learnings made here have not only the power of words, which is already huge, but also the power of action - by gaining knowledge, exchanging ideas and applying them into practical and transformative acts. Today, we witnessed how thousands of young, empowered and demanding young people out there in the streets become a powerhouse for change. For this, we have to be enablers of environments where children and youth can freely express themselves and be comfortable to call it their house - and we are glad to fulfill this since COP27, despite it being a constant path of evolution. 

As Kelvin Merino said in the session “Amazon Youth Voices: United for Climate Action and Connectivity”, “we don’t consider ourselves a vulnerable group, but a strategic group”. So, let’s keep on strategising, anywhere and everywhere! 

COP is divided through thematic days, in which each one represents important topics of negotiation and agendas. Today, on the 8th day of COP30, the theme is especially dear to us: It is Children & Youth Day!

The first panels of the day were all about “Youth Driving Water and Climate Action” and “Best Practices for the Inclusion of Children in Climate Action”. Not solely on this day, or during COP, must children's voices be included and actively heard. As said in the panel “A Whole Different Story: a Youth Manifesto for a New Climate Future”, our work here is not to give children a voice, because they already have one, but to give them a space to vocalise. 

Still in the morning, we suddenly had our Pavilion filled by very young faces, excited to be here and tell their stories - we were glad to receive more than 30 children for a panel of their own: a place where they could share their realities and receive all eyes turned to them, as it should always be. The session occurred under the motto “COP for Children”, that raised awareness of the importance of not tokenising children and inviting them to a few panels where they will be called “inspiring”, but instead, give them the microphone, the resources, and the autonomy and support to organise a place of their own, where their voices will be taken into consideration 

There are, of course, challenges in making that happen. One question raised was how will they feel comfortable raising their voices in places where all around them there are so-called more experienced, “powerful”, grown-ups who are used to owning the debate? For this question, Patience Nabukalu, in an interview for the Children and Youth Pavilion, affirmed that young people should be aware that they have enough power of their own: activism is proven to work, young people are day by day making big changes, and they should be confident, and sure, that their voices matter - their voices have an incomparable impact. Just like there are challenges, there is a much greater amount of hope. 

COP30’s Day 9 marks the second and last Children & Youth thematic day. Today, one of the lessons that resonated the most within this Pavilion was about responsibility. Responsibility to care for future and present generations, to give children and youth the space to be themselves, to enable intergenerational dialogue in an honest exchange of knowledge and support, to speak up for justice and keep fighting for it. 

All of us carry this responsibility, as the climate crisis is shared, even if differently, therefore the solutions aren’t individual. It is, as Johan Rockström affirmed in the CYP’s panel “Planetary Boundaries as framework for Rights of Future Generations”, a “community scale effort”. Additionally, we have a lot to learn about it from indigenous, traditional communities and other forms of societal organisations that are not Western-centred. As Xiye Bastida said in the same panel, “Usually, people have individual rights. Indigenous communities have collective rights: the right to live in community, to have an environment as a community”. 

However, despite the necessity of galvanising community based solutions and responding to responsibilities at the grassroots level, we know that the ones who should be held accountable the most are those who are causing this crisis. Like Ayisha Sid added, “States have obligations with the future generations”, and “youth has the fundamental right to keep their governments accountable”. 

Following this right, we have been seeing how children of all ages are organising at the CYP. It is heartbreaking, though, to hear them already saying that they are doing this activism for future generations. In a session held at the Children and Youth Pavilion, Miguel do Tijolinho, a 12 year old boy from Brazil, said that, even though he faces so many struggles in his living context, he wants a better future for his children. Children of their own should be able to enjoy their livelihoods without worrying about climate catastrophes, environmental and social injustice, and without needing to fight for a basic right which is access to a good and safe environment. Most of all, they shouldn’t feel like their fight is for the next generations, because they are already skeptical of seeing any changes during their childhood. Ideally, children wouldn’t even need to be activists - adults should step up and act in accordance with the responsibilities of their generations.