Highlights of 2020, Plans for 2021

We set up this website and blog to provide new ideas and resources to young people in particular, instead of just sitting back and leaving it to them to sort out climate change through school strikes and street protests. We set ourselves the lofty ambitions to INFORM, ENGAGE, and INSPIRE.

HIGHLIGHTS OF 2020

Since we launched this website and blog in August 2020, these were some of the highlights of last year -

• Publishing 35 blogs on our key themes of

  • Climate Science

  • Energy & Emissions

  • Politics & Negotiations

  • Green Recovery

  • Using the Law to Fix the Climate

  • Finance & Business

  • Education &Opportunities;

• Joined forces with our friends and colleagues at the Italian think tank IARI – Instiuto Analisi Relazioni Internationali, so as to be able to undertake joint projects as we move into the year when the UK and Italy will be co-hosts of COP26;

• Welcomed Guest Blogs from some distinguished contributors on specialist areas, including Hannah Dillon on Carbon Pricing, Giulia Longo with Sam Wilson on youth unemployment and opportunities in Italy and the UK, Ross Baxter on Green jobs, and Professor Dan Farber of UC Berkley on US climate legislation;

• Published a short Guide to the Paris Agreement in English, Italian and Spanish, available to download here.

• Signed up to the regular briefings from the COP26 team at the Cabinet Office for Youth and Civil Society;

• Worked with the amazing youth-led MOCK COP to put on a fringe event on Using the Law to Fix the Climate with help and participation from Ireland Climate Ambassador Barry McLoughlin, Wales Youth Parliament representative Todd Murray, Morocco Gouvernement Parallele des Jeunes representative Manal Bidar, IARI representative Giulia Longo and Parliamentary Assembly for the Mediterranean representative Chiara Ferro, along with MOCK COP delegates from India, Iceland, Denmark, Togo, Madagascar, Canada, France, among others;

• Helped the legal team for the MOCK COP and 330 young climate activists from 142 countries put together their climate demands in a Declaration and Treaty which they presented at their closing ceremony to Nigel Topping and have now sent to all World leaders.

PLANS FOR 2021

If 2020 was exciting, we have big plans for 2021!

We welcome association, partnerships and support, and if you feel minded to get in touch, or would like to participate in any of our events, we would welcome it.

• We will be making proposals for events that can be put on at the Youth Summit in Milan, Italy in September 2021, at COY16 and at COP26 both in Glasgow, Scotland in November 2021

• We are planning an online event on Engineering for the Energy Transition on 4th March 2021, World Engineering Day for Sustainable Development. If you have an engineering background and the ability to help explain or discuss the key issues and help convey them to a non-engineering audience, please get in touch and help us put on this event!

• We aim to have a similar event in the middle of the year about Climate Education, which will draw on access to Climate Science and also look forward to some of the critical issues on youth unemployment, green jobs, and new opportunities. Again, if this is your field or your key interest, please let us know and help us to plan the event!

• We aim to produce three short films, on

  • Using the Law to Fix the Climate

  • Engineering for the Energy Transition

  • Climate Education

    and to get them distributed far and wide, before, during, and after the events in Milan in September and Glasgow in November 2021;

• We will be looking to launch a major publication before COP26, to support participants, to help young people, and to contribute to making them effective champions for climate change action in their own counties after the COP26 conference;

• It is really exciting that the work to date on www.COP26andbeyond.com now has a following in all the countries listed below

Qatar; Nigeria; Australia; USA; India; Ghana; Lithuania; Turkey; France; Netherlands; South Africa; Brazil; Bangladesh; Algeria; United Kingdom: Saudi Arabia; Republic of the Congo; Papua New Guinea; Pakistan; Hong Kong; Zambia; Colombia; Sudan; Canada; Hungary; Kenya; Turkmenistan; Sri Lanka; Mexico; Lesotho; El Salvador; Israel; Peru; Germany; Italy; Chile; Morocco; Greece; Jamaica; Republic of Guinea; Denmark; Ireland; Switzerland; Tunisia; Iceland; Burundi; Finland; Japan; Trinidad & Tobago; Egypt; Nepal; Senegal; Taiwan; Tanzania; Thailand.

We aim to build on that even further in 2021, and would welcome your support!