The Loss and Damage Youth Coalition met with the COP27 Presidency team in July and prior to the meeting, a few Members of the Loss and Damage Youth Coalition shared some statements aimed at ensuring that decision-makers and the COP27 presidency team are able to comprehend the realities of the climate crises on the ground. These youths hope the following short statements will serve as reflection points for decision-makers as we head toward COP27:
Short Statements from LDYC Members:
Malawi was among the nations most damaged by Cyclone Idai in 2019. The country has just recently recovered from it, which was brought on this year by tropical storms Ana and Gombe.
Tropical Storm Ana battered Malawi’s Southern and Central Districts on Monday, January 24, 2022 delivering high gusts and heavy rains. Significant floods wiped away towns in a couple of hours. Several of the areas impacted by Ana were already battling flooding because of the continuing rainy season.
According to the Government of Malawi’s Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DoDMA), as of February 8, 46 persons have been confirmed dead, 18 missing, and 206 injured, with 221,127 homes (more than 945,728 people) affected. In agriculture, swollen rivers killed cattle and swamped farmland, ruining the rural communities livelihoods.
At least 115,388 hectares of crops have been damaged, according to reports. Roughly 228 school buildings were damaged, leaving over 114,218 students without access to education. Accessibility to some of the impacted areas remains difficult due to the poor condition of many of the roads.
Tropical cyclone Gombe has left the country in shambles, with a significant risk of starvation. The country has seen more instances of cholera than it had in the previous 8-10 years.
– Brenda Mwale , Member of LDYC,Malawi
Writing as a youth from Nepal, we belong to the nation connected from the Great Himalayas to urban areas of the “tarhai” Cultural heritage and a climate change issue. A study says Nepal is highly vulnerable to climate change impacts, and recent studies by the Asian Development Bank suggested Nepal faces losing 2.2% of annual GDP due to climate change by 2050. Nepal ratified the Paris Climate Agreement and its Second Nationally Determined Communication (NDC) in 2020, 2011 data.
Many youths are working really hard, but one of the biggest issues to climate action is less understandable government statements regarding Climate change and environmental degradation. From, all over the world we should take action on each country’s issue to make our voice heard on UNGA, COP or COY.
– Birendra Rai, member of LDYC, Nepal
The Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that about 19.4 million people will face food insecurity across Nigeria between June and August 2022. This projection almost doubles such a projection made for 2021, that 12.8 million people will face food insecurity across Nigeria.
FAO reported that “loss of employment and reduction in household income due to the long-term effect of COVID-19 pandemic and displacement arising from conflict and armed banditry as evident in the crisis-emergency livelihood coping strategies adopted by most households.” It is worthy of note that part of the drivers of this food insecurity are armed bandits and terrorists, resulting in negative coping strategies to adapt to the impact of climate change hitting the smallholder communities in northern Nigeria. Major farm produce is traded across Nigeria from the Northeast states of Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe, and Northwestern states of Sokoto, Katsina, Zamfara, and Kaduna States, as well as North-central states of Benue and Niger.
A strategic and well-coordinated approach to combating climate change must take participating country’s peculiar scenarios into account. There is an urgent need to prioritize steps towards the recharge of Lake Chad. This is significant to developing the agricultural production in the area, and it is capable of ending the farmers-herders conflict that has ravaged northern Nigeria for a long time.
As COP-27 President, I implore you to mobilize human and material resources to help address the resources deficit occasioned by climate change in the Sahel region to discourage those that have taken into crime as a negative coping strategy from doing so.
– Hammed Olaoluwa Jimoh, Member of LDYC, Nigeria
Climate change in Kenya and across East Africa has led to more frequent droughts. These have caused wild animals, such as lions and elephants, to wander further in search of water and food. Lions have then come into conflict with humans when they kill sheep and goats in the villages near the national parks. I come from the Mount Kenya region. This part of Kenya we mainly rely on rainfall and we do rain-fed agriculture. When there is climate change and there is a variance in the amount of rainfall we are majorly affected. Climate change has brought along a lot of things like the delayed onset of rain and early cessation.
– Sharon Gakii, Member of LDYC, Kenya