It’s the young people in our society who will feel the consequences of decisions taken, or not taken, by world leaders, and that’s particularly relevant when it comes to negotiations over climate control.
They will be around long after the older generation is gone, so it’s only right that their voices should be heard, and often those calls are for more to be done to stop the world from sliding into crisis.
Around 150 pupils who gathered at Belfast City Hall yesterday for a simulated climate negotiation, an event organised by the British Council NI, will have left knowing that what they would like to see happen and what is possible given the complexities involved are not quite the same thing.
For targets on global warming and the environment to be met, it is going to require a lot of negotiation and a will from those countries holding all the finance and power to help those which don’t.
Even on the limited scale of a simulated negotiation, it proved a difficult hurdle to overcome.
The event did show one thing that will be vital to addressing the climate balance in decades to come — the need for collaboration across the world where those who have support share with those who don’t.
Climate and the environment is a subject young people feel passionately about. They are engaged, knowledgeable and want change to happen.
And the more they continue to press their opinions on those who can make the decisions, the more chance that change can happen.
In a few years’ time the pupils, who came from 45 schools to gather at City Hall, will be of voting age. They will be hoping today’s politicians take note.
Even after a day of debate, where pupils were clear in their views that something needed to be done internationally, they fell short of what was needed to hit targets.
They managed to collectively agree to keep global warming under 2.1C by the end of the century, putting them within reach of the outer range of the ambition of the Paris Agreement.
They were over the target, but made headway with strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, support nations and develop adaptation measures to protect cities and people.
That shows the task that lies ahead for world leaders if we’re to get anywhere close to effectively tackling the global warming crisis.
The politicians of today could do a lot worse than taking a moment, hearing what young people are saying and trying to remove the barriers that always seem to be in place when change is needed.
In the meantime, the more our pupils learn about the task ahead, the better position they will be in to really make a difference in years to come.