Sheila Redzepi & Youth Activists - Law, Justice & Development Week Opening #C4CZone

Thank you very much Anne Marie, and I want to also extend my thanks to the legal community for hosting this incredibly important and very timely conversation. Dr. Kim Stein articulated very clearly the incredibly important role you play in this conversation, as well as ambitious action. The focus this week is on the management of climate action, both on the policy and regulatory side of the conversation as well as on the finance needed. And clearly we've heard both from Laura and the president what will be required to get this agenda moving. Scientists have also told us in no uncertain terms everything that we need to know, and they have certainly set the scene and the very foundations for the conversations we're having today. On the other side, we have seen entrepreneurs, inventors, businesses, the private sector show us that it's not only possible to do things differently, to run businesses differently, but it can also be incredibly profitable. Some have gone as far as to say that it's the best possible strategy for economic growth in the future. What we're trying to do right now is to work out what else we can do, what additional incentives do people need both to respond and to engage effectively. And this of course brings us to the subject of communication: how do we translate incredibly complex and sometimes daunting information so that there is enough momentum and enough desire to want to contribute among the general public? To try and do this today, we're going to be presenting the Digital Media Zone. People use, everyone in this room and many others, social media every day in public life to move the needle on big agendas. We asked ourselves: how best can we convey information in a way that it can be compelling enough that it means something to people, in a way that would get them to engage in real action? Ultimately, just as much as it is a collective action, collective responsibility, it also boils down to the actions of individuals. You saw earlier the winners of the Film for Climate video competition — 860 entries from 155 countries in just three months. It tells you just how much young people from around the world want to be involved and want to express their individual creativity, and importantly, solidarity across borders. So the zone will offer everyone an opportunity to air their views, to think differently, to think outside the box, to come up with criteria for communicating solutions that work, which is what we know young people are best at doing. So it's intended to be a place where we can level some of those complexities that science puts in front of us, where we can move past the politics and the red tape through collective collaboration and action by young people. So now, who better to lead us in this exploration than Victoria Barrett, Paola Hernandez, and Brian McDermott from the Alliance for Climate Education and Earth Guardians? Come and join me. Say hello! Could we please extend them a warm applause?

Thank you so much. Thank you. We will now reconvene. I believe we'll take a break and reconvene again at 11 o'clock. We're very pleased and grateful that we can welcome back Achim Steiner to the Digital Media Zone as well to answer questions and share some of his thoughts with all of you. Thank you very much.