The delegation of Swiss Youth for Climate has returned back home safely from COP27. We advocated on many levels directly with Swiss decision makers such as Simonetta Sommaruga and the Secretary for International Finance Questions. The conference in Egypt has brought us all one significant step forward in terms of climate justice by agreeing to the establishment of a fund addressing Loss & Damage. Many questions are still to be answered, however. A summary of the main outcomes of COP27.

Press Release of Swiss Youth for Climate (French and German Version below)

COP27: In the name of climate justice.

Zurich, 25.10.2022. Swiss Youth for Climate will travel to the COP27 climate conference in Sharm el Sheikh with a delegation of 8 young people. As representatives of Swiss civil society, they will urge international decision-makers to act and call for the rapid implementation of ambitious climate protection measures.

This year’s UN climate conference (COP26) hosted in Glasgow is the most important one since COP21 in Paris in 2015. The most recent IPCC publication (AR6 Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis) is dire. Scientists do not contest climate change and the need to act fast: in order to limit global warming to 1.5ºC—the increasingly aspirational goal of the Paris Agreement—emissions must halve worldwide by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050.

2019, year of civil unrest outside and inside COPs...

Representatives of 190 countries attending the COP24 climate summit in Katowice accepted the rules for implementing the Paris Agreement, which limits global warming to less than 2˚C. But to achieve this result, it took a lot of negotiation and patience, as the delegates of Swiss Youth for Climate observed.

The Conference of the Parties are built on multiple levels: there are not only the negotiations, but many other discussions and events going on around the venue...

COP23 took place in 2017. This peculiar edition was organized by the Republic of Fiji, island country in Melanesia, but was hosted in Bonn, Germany, for practical reasons.
Key topics of the edition were in fact island states, which are the ones that are more strongly feeling the effects of climate change today and will probably experience the strongest impacts in the future. 

What do you do when you get 196 countries to sign a major agreement that will shape our future economies and societies? You celebrate, right? Well, not quite...

How can youth and in particular Swiss Youth for Climate's delegates make a difference in these international events?

During the summer 2015, Océan Dayer founded SYFC to participate at COP21. And guess what? A few months later our first delegation left for France!