• Home
• /
• UAE
• /
• Environment

Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi’s Youth COP unites global north, south

The initiative will see students engage in mock negotiations to prepare a joint document to be presented at the UN Climate Change Conference

Giving youngsters a voice in climate action, Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi (SUAD) has launched the SUAD Youth COP, an online webinar, bringing together more than 700 participants from 85 countries and a panel of climate leaders from the global north and south.

Ensuring that views of the youth are part of the climate policymaking at COP28 UAE, the initiative will see students engage in mock negotiations to prepare a joint document to be presented at the UN Climate Change Conference later this year in Dubai.

Reem Ebrahim Al Hashimy, Minister of State for International Cooperation and Chairwoman of the University Board of Trustees, underscored the importance of empowering the youth and the role they will play in the global transformation.

She highlighted the commitment of the UAE to COP28 and to the inclusion of youth in the process, with the appointment of the Minister of Community Development Shamma Al Mazrui as the COP28 Youth Climate Champion.

The university’s event is being held in collaboration with Université Paris-Cité, France; Universidade Federal Do Cerea, Brazil, and YOUNGO, the official youth constituency of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Professor Silvia Serrano, vice-chancellor of Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi, noted that as a transnational Emirati French higher education institution, the university is in a key position to encourage students and the youth across the globe to engage in the dialogue to realise the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Key speakers from the north and south included Ignacio Ibanez, European Union Ambassador to Brazil; Juliana Alves, Secretary of State for Indigenous People in Ceará, Brazil; Sabra Noordeen, Special Envoy for Climate Change in Maldives; Yao Marcel, Senior Adviser of the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development of Ivory Coast; Jay Shah, contact point of Adaptation Working Group at YOUNGO/UNFCCC; and Eduarda Zoghbi, Senior Adviser to Student Energy.

The webinar stressed on the role students and future generations have to play in the fight against climate change. Panellists underlined the importance of supporting those regions, in particular the Global South, that are most affected by the climate change phenomena which for many has now become a reality.

Join COP negotiations

SUAD Youth COP is one of the initiatives organised by Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi as part of its Go Green 2023 and in alignment with the UAE Year of Sustainability and the COP28.

The Youth COP has been developed to allow students from around the world to engage in the COP28 discussions through a simulation of mock negotiations where students will prepare an ambitious and comprehensive document to tackle the pressing topics around the ocean, loss and damage mechanisms and energy transition. About 25 teams of 75 students will collaborate in a negotiation event on climate-related topics. The selected students will develop a joint document that will become a ‘Call to Action from Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi to Future Generations’, which will be presented at COP28 by the two winning teams.

Registrations are open until June 8. To register and for further details visit: https://gogreen.sorbonne.ae/activities/suad-youth-cop-march-december-2023/