It was my pleasure to interview Kayley Curtis, a University College Dublin alumnus, who attended both COP29 and COP27 as a COP Youth Delegate for Future Leaders Network. She shares with us her insights and experience from COP this year, and her passion for empowering youth voices and engagement in the climate emergency. She also provides advice for those looking to become a COP youth delegate.
Firstly, I understand on the lead up to COP, Youth Delegates speak to young people about key issues surrounding climate. What were the main concerns that arose when you discussed with young people what they wanted to see at COP29?
The main issue that came through was the double standards that seem to exist in the climate space, and particularly in the COP space. There seems to be such anger amongst young people that oil and gas continues to have such a strong voice and continues to be funded by governments across the world. Even our own government at times. We know that renewable solutions are the answer, but no governments are willing to put the financial backing towards that and instead continue to send us down the rabbit hole of fossil fuels. Governments are investing more in oil fields and gas exploration whilst completely ignoring the renewable options that we have to us.
So, whilst you were at COP29, did any particular outcomes stand out for you as being a large step for the climate emergency?
This COP was a strange one because it was a COP of such hope, but then that hope just felt like it fell away. It’s great that we now have a finance number of how much countries are going to contribute to mitigation and loss and damage, but it’s nowhere near what we needed. We needed 2.5 trillion and we got a drop in the ocean of that.
Whilst in the rooms with the negotiators, it was so clear that there’s such anger at the minute, because particularly if you think back to November, it just felt like the whole world was at war. You had Ukraine and Russia, you had Sudan, and you had Israel who at the time was sort of fighting with Iran, Lebanon and Palestine. You had such anger that there was such an investment in war, but not investment in climate. You have countries who were increasing their defence budgets, increasing how much they’re willing to spend on death but won’t spend anything on improving life. It just becomes so frustrating when you see how every country can spin their story to have such a positive thing to say, even if they’re doing nothing. So, there’s just a sense of frustration that, yes, things were achieved, but there was such potential that just wasn’t realised that will be pushed forward to a different COP.
Whenever there’s another year that passes, so much will happen, and a year is so long for our planet, for the warming that’s going on and for the people’s lives that are being impacted. There will be people who will die from climate events between COP29 to COP30. But because that doesn’t affect the decision makers and it doesn’t affect those from largely more economically developed countries, people don’t care and just see it as another meeting in their diary rather than an existential crisis.
Did you engage in any specific questions at COP29 and if so, where did these lead?
So, we were talking to a lot of the UK’s government ministers. One thing in particular that stands out is Ed Miliband launched his new strategy for engaging more young people within the climate discussions. The details are still to be hashed out, but it was great to meet with Ed and for him to say openly that he knows that young people and their education in climate has such an important role to play for the UK’s future development of its climate policy. He was the first to announce at COP29 that young people were going to be a key part in defining the future of UK climate policy. He’s trying to find mechanisms for how he can get young people’s voices to fit into policy, that was a really good and really positive meeting and a great one to see the UK leading the way in.
I see that you also attended COP27 as a youth delegate, would you say that COP27 allowed youth voices to make an impact more so than this COP?
COP27 personally didn’t have as much of an impact because I think just under the Egyptian Presidency everything was a bit more hidden and there were certain things you could just not talk about as they refused to speak about oil and gas exploration, and human rights were a huge issue as well. That could just not be discussed in Egypt. Whereas now under the nature of Azerbaijan, which is a far more open and friendly society. There are conversations that can happen there, and people are so willing to talk, whereas in Egypt everything felt very closed and very much you needed to know who you were speaking to if you wanted to share your opinion.
In terms of the youth voice there definitely seems to be more youth delegates this year than previously. It seems to be that people are aware of how good it is to have observers in the room and to have that variety of voices. I personally find it phenomenal to be in that room and to understand the minutia of the detail that’s being discussed. There is the Blue Zone with all the pavilions and the Green Zone where all the climate activists can meet together. There seems to be such a big community of activists who want to meet other activists who are like minded, making connections and getting more action at grassroots level, rather than relying on the government to solve everything for us.
What advice would you give to anyone interested in being a COP Youth Delegate in the future?
I would say that all climate action starts with you, and whilst the government can implement the big schemes and have the funds for this, ultimately if each individual takes small steps in their own life to be more climate conscious, that will lead to wide scale changes that we don’t need to rely on the government for. If someone was keen to become a COP Youth Delegate, just to take those small steps be able to influence others, to show what you’ve done in your own community and in your own life. To then be able to show how you could take that to a national scale and then to an international scale. That’s the best advice I could give.
Attending COP is not necessarily something that you are educated on, you need to be in those spaces. You need to understand the minutia of the science and the finance of everything that’s being discussed. So, if you’re able to come to the role with a backpack of knowledge, then you’ll absolutely soar.
Did anything you witnessed at COP29 touch on energy? And if so, what were your thoughts on this?
Because Azerbaijan was the host country, OPEC (the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) had a really big presence, which it wouldn’t usually have had. It was very interesting because as you would imagine, OPEC was sort of green washing everything and twisting everything, explaining how they’ve made oil and gas more sustainable, which is kind of a paradigm in itself, isn’t it? So that was a big take away. So much oil and gas were there, and OPEC were trying to push forward the fact that oil and gas should not be detrimented just because of climate change and the climate emergency. That point was also made by Saudi Arabia, they refused to sign any agreement that would involve the reduction of oil and gas. But they also said they are producing oil and gas because people are buying it, if countries want to stop oil and gas being produced, they need to stop buying. They claim they are the greenest country producing oil, I have zero idea how on Earth they could ever come up with that metric, but they say, “we’re the greenest, we’re the best country to go to, but if you don’t want to buy oil and gas, then don’t”. The oil and gas producing nations, which are always seen as the bad guys, are calling out Western countries, actually pointing the finger further along the line and calling them out for their reliance on oil and gas. I think this was a very interesting point and something that definitely didn’t exist in the Egypt COP because again, you could not speak negatively about oil and gas in Egypt.
What do you think is causing the lack of uptake in renewables?
I think it’s a lack of will to invest in renewables. The fact that in the past five years, the UK has opened new oil fields and could have put that investment into renewables instead. There is such a great project happening in Cornwall for geothermal energy at the moment, but they don’t invest in that, they invest in oil and gas in Scotland, because they say it’s better to have oil and gas in house than to ship it from elsewhere, such as the Middle East. They always have an answer, but they never seem to have that passion and that drive to actually declare they’re going to move towards renewables. They are moving the Net Zero target further and further down the priority list, and there’s just no willpower for renewables. The technology keeps developing, but you wouldn’t know that if you looked at the government’s policies, despite technology increasing, investment hasn’t, it’s stayed the exact same, if not decreased slightly.
One major thing that came out of COP29 was the new Nationally Determined Contribution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 81% by 2035 from 1990 levels. Do you this is achievable?
No, and the reason I would say no is there was no consensus at all. Some countries were behind it, those lower income countries that are just so impacted by climate were so, so passionate about it, but there was no buy in from bigger countries. It was a box ticking exercise at best and I know I’m really pessimistic about it.
Lastly, is there anything else you want to add about your experience of being a COP Youth Delegate?
I would just add that I think, on your point about young people, that young people are so full of energy and so full of ideas, and I would encourage all young people to get involved in some form, whether that’s at a community level, or just making changes in their own lives, because if it’s something that affects every person on the planet, then every person on the planet has to take their own time and their own initiative to change something to help contribute to the greater good. That would be my message to younger people.
Useful Links
It was a wonderful to hear from Kayley, below is her LinkedIn and the Future Leaders Network website which has more information about applying to be a COP Youth Delegate, as well as other opportunities.