Egypt, Sharm El-Sheikh, Nov.6, 2022 –GAUC COP27 Youth Delegation hold a press conference today in COP27 where they gave a brief introduction about GAUC’s ‘Climate x’ Campaign as well as the role youth holds in addressing climate change.

Representatives of the GAUC Ambassadors attended the press conference including Mara Ghilan at LSE, Garance Brueil at Sciences Po, Karen Wang from Imperial Karen Wang and Tan Chang, Zuo Jialu, Cheng Haosheng, He Yuezhang, Wang Xinlu, and Xie Canyang from Tsinghua University. Alice Ho, the Chief Youth Officer of GAUC moderated the event.

Alice Ho reflected GAUC’s development. Founded in 2019, GAUC aims to shoulder the unique responsibility of higher education in advancing climate change by advancing climate change solutions through research, education, and public outreach, and to partner with industry, non-profit and government organizations to promote rapid implementation from local to global scales.

Garance Brueil talked about the design of the ‘Climate x’ theme. Climate change is closely intertwined with all the SDGs and holds transforming power over broader social and economic sectors, making a synergetic approach that integrates the realization of the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda essential in building a sustainable net-zero future. Since 2021, GAUC has been focused on enhancing the awareness of the public and the actions of global youth regarding the synergy climate change have with other SDGs.

Cheng Haosheng introduced Global Youth Climate Week. Having realized the obstacles that the next generation had to face in addressing climate change, GAUC proposed the Week to UNFCCC back in January 2022. Scheduled one week ahead of each UNFCCC COP, the Week aims to provide a platform for the youth worldwide to convey their climate actions of youth worldwide, to help them voice out their climate dedication stronger and to prepare them to take the lead in shaping the net-zero future. To maximize the effect of the Week and to engage broader audiences, GAUC has called out to its global partners to co-initiate the Week. Within a month, over 100 co-initiators from 6 continents were on board to support the climate actions of youth, including academic institutions & think tanks, renowned brands from the private sector, media agencies, charities, international & regional organizations, NGOs, and civil society.

He Yuezhang shared his experience in organizing Global Youth Summit on Net Zero Future. Being the “by youth, for youth’ part of the Global Youth Climate Week, the Summit was organized by the GAUC Ambassadors solely and provides a platform for over 100 GAUC Global Youth Ambassadors from 9 countries on 6 continents to present their team projects, which are interdisciplinary approaches addressing climate change.

On behalf of GAUC Global Youth Ambassadors, Mara Ghilan presented the Open Letter to world leaders during the press conference. In the letter, the GAUC Ambassadors reaffirm that the youth generation is a valuable contributor to addressing the climate crisis and a major force representing the net-zero future. They call on call on global leaders to recall the principle of intergeneration equity and uphold global solidarity and multilateralism; call on global leaders to broaden channels for young people to effectively participate in global climate governance, and call on global leaders to provide more platforms and opportunities to improve the overall competency of global youth.

Tan Chang explained the flagship event GAUC is going to hold at COP27, the GAUC Day on November 9th. The GAUC Day, which features the GAUC COP27 High-level event organized by GAUC and diversified panel discussions organized by GAUC’s member universities including Cambridge, Stellenbosch, Tsinghua, UC Berkely, Oxford, and UFRJ, is a display of the collective strength of higher education GAUC represents.

Karen Wang shared her first-hand experience during the campaign and how excited she is about her COP27 journey ahead. “The most important part is, young people like us, are standing on the solution side.,” she said.

At the end of the event, Alice Ho reaffirms the value of ‘by youth, for youth’. “The open letter represents the progress global youth achieved in 2022. It is the message we would like to share with global climate leaders. We will keep addressing climate change with our actions,” she said.

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