Achieving an Equitable and Sustainable Energy Transition: Social Data, Best Practices for Intergenerational Collaboration, and Supporting Youth-led Action
Diverse knowledge and perspectives play key roles in driving research and innovation on climate change action. Despite equitable participation and the value of city-based partnerships as key dimensions of local climate action, youth are an important but often excluded cohort in local climate action. As part of a partnership between Student Energy, Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (GCoM), and the Melbourne Centre for Cities at the University of Melbourne, a team of youth researchers representing eight global regions have been assembled as part of the GCoM Youth Policy Innovation Team to advance these imperatives for city and local climate action.
Drawing from the world’s first social dataset of youth perspectives gathered from Student Energy’s Global Youth Energy Outlook (GYEO), members of the policy innovation team have analysed and distilled these datasets into concrete recommendations for an inclusive, climate safe and energy transition. This seminar will provide insight into the key findings and elaborate on the identified pathways and perspectives for action: Youth Vision for the Future Energy System, Governance and Policy Innovation, Technological and Financial Innovation and Social Innovation.
Further resources:
- Global Covenant Of Mayors: https://www.globalcovenantofmayors.org/
- Melbourne Centre for Cities: https://sites.research.unimelb.edu.au/cities
- Global Youth Energy Outlook (including a recording of the Launch event at COP26): https://studentenergy.org/program/outlook/
- International Energy Agency, Recommendations of the Global Commission on People-Centred Clean Energy Transitions: https://www.iea.org/reports/recommendations-of-the-global-commission-on-people-centred-clean-energy-transitions
- The Student Energy 'Energy Topics Index': https://studentenergy.org/energy-education/topics/
- Jamaica Climate Change Youth Council: https://ourfootprintja.org/
- An article by GoodGoodGood on the role of youth councils in tackling climate change: https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/youth-council-climate-change
This event has been organised with the financial support of the European Union’s Partnership Instrument. The opinions expressed are the sole responsibility of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.
Paola studies Industrial Engineering at Universidad San Francisco Xavier (USFX) and is passionate about renewable energy, science, start-ups, and community projects. In 2015, Paola received a scholarship from the Embassy of the United States of America to participate in a Science and Innovation Summer Camp in La Jolla, California where Paola gained life-changing experience about renewable energy and its importance in our future. Since then, Paola has worked on many social projects in Bolivia and founded Magnífica Warmi with a group of friends, which is a project that works with Indigenous women on issues related to the environment and climate change.
In 2020, she was selected as the Latin America Regional Coordinator for the Global Youth Energy Outlook of Student Energy (the first report of its kind to share what young people from all the world want for their energy future in their countries and regions), in 2021 was selected to represent Bolivia in the Youth4Climate: Driving Ambition at Milan for Pre-COP where 400 young people from all over the world will meet to propose the construction of a more sustainable future and now she is part of the Global Support Team of the SDG7 Youth Constituency.
Alison Fong is a budding young planner passionate about connecting peoples, conversations and the built environment through an inclusive and sustainable creative focus. As a recent Master of Urban Planning Graduate from the University of Melbourne, Alison has continuously practiced these values whilst fostering diverse experience across government, private sector, academic and local community the lin planning and placemaking initiatives. Most recently, Alison was chosen to participate as part of the Global Covenant of Mayors’ Youth Policy Innovation Team, where she worked within a collaborative global youth team to extract youth policy insights on city-level climate action from Student Energy’s Global Youth Energy Outlook.
Alison has also been a keen advocate in shaping accessible places for all, where she was awarded 2nd place at the Climathon Melbourne Hackathon in 2017 with her team for an outstanding project to bring greater heat wave knowledge and environmental awareness to international students and was also awarded the annual SGS Economics Planning Graham Larcombe Award in 2020 for her demonstrated interest in equity and social disadvantage issues in urban development during her graduate studies.