As I am writing this piece, the COP 30 has started in Belém, Brazil. Throughout the last twelve months, the host country has been working incessantly to create a political momentum to ensure that the most significant climate related gathering of the year will be a success, delivering tangible results for the people of the planet.
A hallmark of the Brazilian Presidency of the COP has been involving and engaging the members of the civil society, offering non-state actors a unique platform to help shape the conversation.
As part of this effort, indigenous peoples were recognized for their essential guardianship of the forests and this is particularly relevant as the COP is being hosted by a city in the heart of the Amazon. This time around, Nepal will be represented by a smaller delegation.
In many ways, this decision is justified by the urgency of avoiding the waste of taxpayers’ money, breaking a well-known pattern that characterized many international conferences. In such occasions, elected officers, at the highest levels of the government were travelling with a jamboree of delegates, many of whom without real expertise on the subjects to be discussed in the events to be attended.
On the other hand, I believe it is a pity because, considering the unique circumstances and phase in which the nation is going through, the transitional government could have included in its official delegation to Belém, led by Madan Prasad Pariyar, Minister for Agriculture and Livestock Development, also a strong representation of the new generations. Nepal has an incredible crop of climate justice activists that are not only determined to ensure that climate warming can be tackled and addressed, but also are technically well equipped. In short, they have passion and commitment but they are also very sound on the myriad of technicalities that characterize climate negotiations.
As reported by The Annapurna Express, a youth driven consultation was held in Kathmandu, “From the Himalayas to the Amazon: Understanding Climate Negotiations and Nepal’s Engagement”. Over the discussions, young climate activists highlighted a series of key issues that Nepal should focus during the negotiations in Belém, including making efforts to institutionalize the role of the young generations in global climate governance.
Having enabled a major number of youths to travel to Brazil would have given a strong message that the transitional government is serious about involving and engaging young people in a matter, climate change, that is already defining and will further define their future. Resources-wise, it should not have been a problem to find the modality to finance their participation as international external partners would have been eager to support this symbolic and yet meaningful gesture.
The issue of how to select the members of the delegation representing the younger generations would have been apparently trickier but a clear selection and “vetting” process could have solved this conundrum.
Established and recognized groups involved in climate and biodiversity (both can be considered as the two sides of a coin, and the latter, biodiversity will feature predominantly in Belém, highlighting the nexus biodiversity-climate that the Amazon so well espouses), could have proposed some names based on their experiences and technical know-how. A selection panel at federal ministerial level, could have interviewed them and then finalize those selected.
Otherwise, an open call with very precise and detailed requirement could have been published.
However, this solution, probably the most transparent and open, would have been more challenge to manage in terms of the real possibility of a myriad of candidates would have come forward.
But leaving aside a fresher and younger way that the Nepali’s delegation to the COP 30 could have been shaped up, it is important to discuss about how to institutionalize the participation of young people in the field of national climate and biodiversity governance. Ad hoc consultations and dialogues are always important but clearly are inadequate to fully represent the new generations and engage them.
Actually, youths in matter of climate and biodiversity should not be just engaged. This is the old model based on coming up with possible genuine intent of involving young people that, nevertheless, were ending up with tokenistic solutions. If you think about it, we need to be attentive and respectful on the ways we talk about youths. Youths cannot “just” be involved. Isn’t too simplistic and convenient? They must be offered a real voice on the table. They have agency and expertise and better forms of representation must be found.
This understanding does not only apply to climate or governance affairs but it should be universally used throughout other spheres of policymaking. Deliberative democracy offers the best way for not only young people but also citizens in general to have a real voice heard.
Citizens around the world have been leading reason and expertise based discussions through citizens’ assemblies that are in the most cases backed and supported by state institutions led by elected officials. Climate and biodiversity assemblies are spaces where citizens can discuss, recommend and in some cases, even decide both solutions of both practical and policy level nature.
I do believe that, at the moment, Nepal has a unique window to formally introduce and institutionalize aspects of deliberative democracy. Yet, this opportunity will soon be closed as momentum that stemmed from the September’s uprising is dimming.
Yet the climate and biodiversity sectors could offer a preview of what could be created in terms of citizens’ ownership of the decision making. To start with, we do not need revolutionary step.
The Federal Government could create a Youth Climate and Biodiversity Council as an advisory body that could later, following the election, become institutionalized in the constitutional framework. This proposition is very doable and some regulations based on transparency and common sense can be designed and approved.
Then the same council could be put in charge of designing and implementing a pilot initiative in the field of climate and biodiversity citizens led democracy. Climate Biodiversity Citizens assemblies could be launched in each Province, in partnership with local and provincial governments.
To start with, they would not offer binding decisions but at least, those local governments hosting them would commit to discuss and analyze the propositions coming from them, offering a written explanation for those recommendations being rejected. This is a common practice that has been mainstreamed in the field of deliberative democracy, guaranteeing that, at very minimum, the ideas coming from citizens ‘assemblies will be taken seriously even if they cannot all be implemented.
A Youth Climate and Biodiversity Council offering advice and recommendations to the Federal government (provincial and local governments could also be “nudged’ to do likewise) is not impossible. It is very practical and easy to imagine.
Offering such a council the responsibility to initiate what would become the first experience of citizens’ deliberations in the country is also not too complex and is manageable. Let’s not forget that institutionalizing youths’ participation in global forums like the climate COP is not the only way to address the most daunting challenges faced by humanity.
We could start locally, in a step-by-step approach where the new generations have a real agency and a real voice. Couldn’t this become the beginning of a process of power-sharing?
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