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Young MENA climate activists take action: From local, global advocacy to COP28
Born and bred in the UAE, Ayshka Najib’s climate fight began five years ago.
In 2018, while visiting her family in Kerala, India, the area she was staying in was hit by torrential rains and flash floods – not an unusual phenomenon for the country, but with the worsening climate crisis, these natural disasters have become all too frequent.
A man rides his motorbike over a damaged bridge in Idukki, Kerala, India, September 6, 2018. (Reuters)
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Witnessing first-hand how her hometown grappled with the effects of global warming, triggered the now 21-year-old’s resolve towards climate activism.
“One night was particularly awful. The whole area was in ‘red alert’, which meant flooding was getting really bad,” Najib told Al Arabiya English. “I was even afraid to close my eyes because I was worried sick that ‘if I close my eyes now, the next time I open them, I’ll probably see myself underwater,’ and that thought really scared me,” she said.
As a climate activist, Najib is a member of Fridays for Future MAPA – a group that seeks to tackle the effects of climate change and help those most affected by it.
“A lot of people tend to talk about the climate crisis in future tense, like it’s a distant issue that’s going to happen, but it’s happening now. So many people across the world are dying because of the climate crisis,” she said.
Fridays for Future, a youth-led climate strike movement, began in 2018, when Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg began a school strike for climate in the three weeks leading up to the Swedish elections. She sat outside the Swedish Parliament every school day, demanding urgent action on the problem.
Extreme weather has caused more than two million deaths worldwide and caused $4.3 trillion in economic damage over the past half a century, a report by the United Nations said in May this year. A total of 11,778 weather-related disasters occurred from 1970 to 2021, the report from the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said.
Najib began her activism locally, working on clean-up drives and recycling campaigns in her neighborhood. However, over the years, the scope of her work has expanded, syncing with the UAE’s approach to tackle climate change.
One of the most important aspects of her work as a climate activist has been to make sure that strategies in the UAE to tackle the effects of global warming and climate change benefit people of all backgrounds and age groups – something that this year’s upcoming COP28 talks in Dubai are going to focus on.
COP28 is scheduled to be held at Dubai at Expo City from November 30 to December 12 and is expected to be the most inclusive COP conference yet.
During climate talks in Brussels this July, UAE’s COP28 designate Sultan al-Jaber said, “Full inclusion will be the hallmark of the COP28 presidency,” adding that the countries will only be successful in tackling climate change “by enhancing every person, every generation and every corner of society.”
Al-Jaber earlier said that the UN-backed climate conference would permit “peaceful” assembly to ensure that climate activists can have their “voices heard.”
Sultan al-Jaber, chief executive of the UAE's Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and president of this year's COP28 climate, talks during the UAE Climate Tech conference in Abu Dhabi Energy centre on May 10, 2023. (AFP)
The effects of climate change disproportionately fall on “underserved communities who are least able to prepare for, and recover from, heat waves, poor air quality, flooding and other impacts,” according to an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report released in the second half of 2021.
EPA’s analysis indicates that racial and ethnic minority communities are particularly vulnerable to the greatest impacts of climate change, the report from the US-based agency said.
Najib’s work as an activist has been successful enough to prompt higher youth participation in COP28, while simultaneously working with the UAE’s Ministry of Education to help develop a nationwide “green” curriculum.
The UAE is heavily dependent on oil income, but is working to move away from this dependency by fostering non-oil sectors. This should help the country reach its climate targets such as becoming a carbon-neutral economy by 2030, in line with the Paris Climate Targets it has pledged to follow.
“It’s impossible to force the countries to transition overnight, but what we can do is put the right form of accountability on those in these countries to make them realize that this cannot be the future of the energy sector,” Najib said.
‘Not copying Western-oriented activism’
Youth activist Thunberg has spearheaded global youth protests, with young people all over Europe regularly staging mass protests against governments burning fossil fuels and other practices that damage the environment.
However, Najib and Qatari activist Neeshad Shafi told Al Arabiya English that this model of staging protests simply doesn’t work in the region.
“Let activist leaders not try to replicate global activism here. That doesn’t work,” Shafi told Al Arabiya English.
In 2015, Shafi co-founded the Arab Youth Climate Movement Qatar to get more young people involved in climate activism.
“We saw there was a lack of representation [from young people], [and] of awareness [on climate issues in the country], even though we [Qatar] were the first [Gulf country] to host COP,” Shafi said.
Qatar had hosted COP18 talks in 2012.
The former Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani talks during the opening ceremony of the plenary session of the high-level segment of the 18th session of the Conference of Parties (COP18) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Doha December 4, 2012. (Reuters)
The Arab Youth Climate Movement Qatar started as a youth club before emerging as an official association in 2018.
“[When it began] It was just an advocacy organization using social media to talk about climate issues,” said Shafi, adding that now the group runs five permanent programs, including writing white papers and being part of government discussions on climate change.
“The youth movement grew in maturity over time, not just to make noise, but provide credible information to support the state [on climate policy],” Shafi said.
The group also works with local communities to make sure the voices of everyone in the country are heard when the government sets its climate agenda.
“I would say the success of our youth climate group was from not copying Western-oriented activism. What we tried was to build a relationship with the state. [The governments] are here to listen to us today, so this is a big win,” he said.
Unlike the UAE, Qatar has not pledged to meet the Paris climate targets to reduce emissions by 45 percent by 2030 and to have net zero emissions by 2050.
Shafi thinks the transition to net zero emissions for Gulf countries, including Qatar, is not immediately possible, though he is “optimistic.”
But first, people in Qatar must come to face the issues brought on by climate change, he said. “I think there’s a lack of understanding about climate issues, locally,” said Shafi, adding that most people in Qatar associate climate change with forest fires in California or flooding in Bangladesh, “not knowing that it can happen here as well.”
‘Leaders of today and tomorrow’
Youth should engage with scientists, policymakers and government leaders for “they are the leaders of today and tomorrow,” said Mohamed Maray Elshikhi, a climate activist and Executive Director of the Libyan Youth Council for Climate Change, in an interview with Al Arabiya English.
Concerned about climate-linked migration in Libya and the MENA region, Mohamed is on a mission to educate the local population on the ill-effects of climate change, mitigation and adaptation techniques.
“I’m Libyan and I want to be Libyan. I don’t want to be an immigrant in another country, just because I want to have a better life in the future,” Mohamed said.
With an education and professional background in environmental change and global sustainability, the 27-year-old is a youth negotiator at the UN-backed climate forum COP and a concerned Libyan national who hopes to bring changes to policy and increase climate-linked funding in the north African nation.
According to an estimate by the UN-backed World Bank, up to 90 million people are at risk of becoming internal migrants in North Africa by 2050 if there is no concrete climate action.
“Being an activist from a failed state as well as a post-conflict country, it’s a bit tricky because we still don’t have the ability to just speak out – not just on climate change, but about human rights, children’s rights and violence as well,” Mohamed said.
Despite the existence of a UN-led MENA climate change fund, countries like Libya and Syria do not receive any percentage of that corpus.
“I’ve been working for the past 20 years … There is no funding to fight climate change or to implement climate action or build and train young enterprises or to build capacity.”
This, despite climate change, environment and water being a priority under the UN’s Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (SDCF), which underlines the shared goals across key sectors between 2023 and 2025.
One of the ways in which the UN claims to offer support is by “strengthening the capacities of national and sub-national authorities and stakeholders to develop and implement gender-sensitive responses on climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction, in accordance with the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction,” according to the UN SDCF with Libya.
“Libya is one of three countries that do not have their NDCs [Nationally Determined Contribution] yet … And there are many struggles regarding building the NDC – lack of governmental authority and lack of technologies for the NDCs. They [government officials and leaders] don’t want to share government document and information with international or other foreign companies to conduct the NDCs,” the activist added.
All eyes on UAE-led COP28
An aerial view of Dubai's Expo City during the EXPO 2020 event. (File photo)
Mohamed holds a largely pessimistic view on past stagings of COP, the UN climate conference. He said the annual event was becoming an exhibition like the World Expo. He faults the undervalued participation of youth activists and negotiators by policy-writers and decision-makers.
Despite this stance, Mohamed is hopeful about the UAE playing host to COP28. He expects public-private partnerships to be a key outcome of the upcoming climate conference in Dubai.
“Public-private partnerships are going to play a huge role. Although some climate activists refer to it as ‘greenwashing’ … it can actually help a lot to implement many green projects, innovative solutions that can accelerate the race to net zero,” Mohamed said, adding: “We never had this kind of engagement before.”
According to Mohamed, COP28 is going to present an alternative point of view – to encourage companies to accelerate their innovative solutions to switch from the current system. “This is much needed,” he added.
He particularly lauded the provision of a ‘Relief, Recovery and Peace’ day demarcated to recognize the impact of conflict in climate finance and actions. He also said that the Gulf countries are doing “much better than most of the other countries in the region” in terms of phasing out fossil fuels.
He credits the success to a sound political system that he hopes will one day be reflected by his country as well.
The six GCC member-states are blessed with a relatively stable political environment and immense wealth from oil and gas revenue. With the local currencies pegged to the US dollar, aiding trading benefits, countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia are also working towards economic diversification and the funding of projects for developing countries such as Egypt.
For now, Mohamed calls on the financially stable Gulf nations to consider setting up a fund to tackle the effects of climate change on countries such as Libya and Syria.
Fatna Ikrame Elfanne from Morrocco is another activist who told Al Arabiya English that it is vital for the youth from the region to be involved in climate discussions.
“They should be included because the youth are the future and represent a big percentage of the majority of societies across the world,” Elfanne said.
Awareness is the key
Elfanne is an activist with Youth Climate Morocco, founded in 2021 to raise awareness on climate change and environmental issues in the North African country.
The group works with people between the age of 18 and 40 by “giving them the knowledge and tools they need in order to take action and implement their sustainable ideas and initiatives.
“We believe awareness is the key to sustainable change,” she said.
Programs that the group has been part of include looking at water scarcity in Morocco as well as waste management in the small city of Ain Atiq near the Moroccan capital of Rabat.
Morocco is battling the adverse effects of climate change such as droughts and extreme rainfall that are affecting the country’s wheat production – something that is vital to the population’s income.
Despite this, Elfanne said “not everyone is concerned about environmental issues” in the country, which means it is important to make sure they know about it.
In an attempt to ensure that the voices of young people are heard, Youth Council Morocco is advocating to make sure the voices of young people are included in climate policy.
Elfanne, who participated in COP27 in Egypt, will also be part of COP28 in Dubai this year.
Public-private partnerships
Public-private partnerships are the key to bringing about sustainability-linked changes in the day-to-day lives of UAE residents, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Ali Al Nuaimi, CEO of Al Ihsan Charity in Ajman and an environmental adviser to the government of the emirate told Al Arabiya English.
The Ajman royal family member, who goes by the moniker ‘Green Sheikh,’ urged a growth in partnerships between the government, private sectors and NGOs to add to the success of the outcome of COP28.
“I am so proud that the leadership in the UAE had the ambition to make the emission targets clearly focused on adaptation and resilience and on scaling up climate finance. This is being done by addressing the damage on the ground and also by promoting technologies and solutions,” Sheikh Abdul Aziz said.
“I am expecting that the UAE will be hosting COP with a commitment to leadership in climate change and also to provide a platform for global collaboration. It’s all about collaboration and collective efforts,” he added.
The sheikh runs the ‘Green Sheikh Academy’, where his team organizes programs to introduce and familiarize participants of all ages with nature through talks, activities, field trips and philosophy-led sessions.
This environmentalist, who is an MA in environmental management and a PhD in clean production and industrial ecosystems, is now promoting and urging local industry leaders to normalize industrial symbiosis – a process in which the waste and by-products of one establishment become the raw material for another.
Converting waste to energy, like the UAE does on a minor scale, requires a more efficient process to power this process, said Sheikh Abdul Aziz.
The COP28 climate conference in Dubai will, for the first time, assess the current progress of where the world stands since adopting the Paris Agreement in 2015, to better align goals and take corrective measures to ensure that the countries are on track to achieving a global warming level below two degrees Celsius, and, under ideal circumstance, limiting it to 1.5 degrees Celsius, above pre-industrialization levels.
A part of its goal was to expand youth participation “from underrepresented groups in climate change policy-making” and selected 100 delegates from countries, including from the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Small Island Developing States (SIDS), Indigenous Peoples and other minority groups around the world, according to information available on the UAE’s COP28 website.
Shamma al-Mazrouei, the UAE Minister for Youth Affairs, one of the youngest ministers in the world when she first took office, will lead the youth delegation that seeks to “expand youth participation in the international climate negotiation processes by providing robust capacity-building for 100 young delegates and fully funding them to attend COP28, as well as other milestones in the climate negotiation process, establishing a model for youth inclusion for the COP process moving forward.”
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