Climate Change is the greatest challenge that humanity has faced in its history and to stop it, it is necessary to know how we have provoked it. So, EuroVértice, in the framework of the European project LIFE ADAPTATE, has given 12 educational talks in centers of secondary education of the municipalities participating in the project, Águilas, Cartagena and Lorca, in order to raise awareness among young people about the importance of facing the climate change.
In these talks students have been instructed on fundamental concepts such as the greenhouse effect and global warming, detailing the origin of the greenhouse gases that have contributed the most to this climate change. But not only its causes were exposed, but also the consequences of this change in climate, which are already more than evident, so that young people are aware that everyone, including them, are responsible for climate change and that it is in our hands to reverse this dramatic process.
In this way, the students know some of the international initiatives that are being carrying out this fight: the Intergovernmental Panel of Experts on change Climate Change (IPCC) and the Conference of the Parties (COP), showing the importance of the COP21 of Paris in 2015. Also, given the importance of local action (think globally, but acts locally), the Covenant of Mayors is also made known, the biggest initiative local to fight against climate change and its consequences in cities. This pact Volunteer of the mayors is intended to fulfill the political commitments at the local level reached at the local level. In this way, mayors commit to mitigate the change climate, making their location more and more efficient, causing fewer emissions of greenhouse gases. But they also take into account the impact that this change in the climate will have on the cities, acting on them to reduce their effects through the implementation of measures that adapt them to this change and reduce its consequences.
Given that the talks have taken place within the framework of the LIFE ADAPTATE project, funded by the European Commission through the LIFE Programme, it also explains what their respective cities are doing, through this project, to adapt to climate change and so that all of them, citizens, can develop their lives despite the increase in temperature, the lengthening of summer periods, torrential rains or tropical nights.
Each of these three municipalities are developing pilot actions that allow adaptation to climate change. These actions include systems for measuring the environmental conditions with and without the pilot action, in order to evaluate the positive impact it would have on citizens.
But the most interesting thing of all has been the debates that have been created at the end of the talks, in which the students’ contributions have been a true generating forum for ideas with which each one could help fight against climate change. This In this way, young people become aware of the importance of this challenge and of the Responsibility that everyone, including them, have in the fight for the protection of the planet. While there is youth, there is hope. Today we can say, with more reasons than ever, that the Planet has allies, young and passionate.
