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You(th)can change the world

With the movement not looking to slow down, is it time we let the youth of the world take control over the reins which have been held for the longest time by politicians who are too ignorant to understand the nuances of climate change?

You(th)can change the world

In this file photo taken on February 21, 2019, Swedish 16-years-old climate activist Greta Thunberg attends a meeting at the 'Civil Society For rEUnaissance' at the EU Charlemagne Building in Brussels. Greta Thunberg, Anuna De Wever, Kyra Gantois or Nakabuye Flavia. These young girls became the symbols of a youth advocating against climate change and invested by women, like other movements for the environment. (Aris Oikonomou / AFP)

#FridaysForFuture has been trending on Twitter, and along with it, the movement to seize control over climate change has taken over schools all around the world. Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old from Sweden started this movement, by skipping school on Fridays to protest outside the Swedish Parliament since last August.

Whilst managing her classes, she has also become the face of the global movement where kids have been asking for accountability from politicians and governments to give the issue the attention it deserves. In her speaking engagements, like the one at COP24 at Katowice, she managed to ask for accountability from many world leaders ranging from Donald Trump to Narendra Modi.

Though many governments around the world seek solace in the outdated laws and constitutions that could barely imagine the impending doom in the form of climate change and argue that development is the number one priority over environmental conservation, kids around the world have refused to be satisfied with that response. There has been a collective international movement against government lethargy and most them argue for the same thing, systematic changes to deal with climate change.

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These kids, dubbed the ‘Victim Generation’, have been increasingly looking towards the courtrooms to bring the much-needed attention on these issues, and the courts have been using these opportunities to highlight the gaps in legislations regarding environmental protection laws and tackling climate change.

Be it Ridhima Pandey from India, who filed a case in the National Green Tribunal challenging India’s implementation of emissions reduction policies, or the five students who managed to convince the Colombian Supreme Court to reverse its decision denying their climate change lawsuit against the government, or Our Children’s Trust, which has been filing petitions on behalf of many youth in the United States of America which led to the ever so famous, Juliana v. United States, or the seven-year-old Rabab Ali’s case in Pakistan, where she sued the government for violating the right to a healthy life of her generation, there is no dearth of attempts being made to right the wrongs that have been perpetrated for over a few centuries against the environment.

With the movement not looking to slow down, is it time we let the youth of the world take control over the reins which have been held for the longest time by politicians who are too ignorant to understand the nuances of climate change? Billions have been pledged by nations across the world to combat climate change, and once again, it only calls for more systematic changes rather than just mere combating of climate change. This is further supplemented by the fact that some of the most prominent political personalities in the world have come out to be climate change deniers, flying in the face of decades worth of scientific analysis and data.

The movements are growing, a new 11-minute school walkout has taken over the United States of America, being spearheaded by another young teenager, Alexandria Villasenor, who says the movement emphasizes on the fact that after 11 years, we might not be able to control climate changes at all. The next movement might start in a university or school in your country, and it’s only important that we keep believing that you(th) can change the world.

(The writer is a fourth-year student of law at the Jindal Global University, Sonipat)

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