Marina Guião's Intervention at Meeting with UN Secretary-General
Addressing the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, at a bilateral meeting on September 16th, Marina Guião's intervention emphasized the importance of a High level climate education Summit - an annual action-oriented dialogue between education and environmental ministers that will serve as an important platform to keep track and exchange best practices between countries on efforts made to improve ACE and implement climate education policies; and invited the Secretary-General to receive the Global Youth Statement in Dubai later this year.
Marina Guião's Complete Intervention
Coming from a country full of biodiversity potential, I’d like to highlight that education is the most crucial tool to empower youth climate leaders.
So considering the urgent need to accelerate a fair ecological transition, the next generation of professionals needs to be prepared to assume new jobs in a greener economy.
Today I’m here to ask you, secretary general, to help us in ensuring that Action for Climate Empowerment will not only be an agenda item in the negotiations, but be implemented, monitored and reported, at all levels.
With that in mind, we ask for a High level climate education Summit - an annual action-oriented dialogue between education and environmental ministers that will serve as an important platform to keep track and exchange best practices between countries on efforts made to improve ACE and implement climate education policies.
This dialogue should be informed by young people’s experience of climate education, so that climate ambition can feed into the design and implementation of educational curriculum.
At the same time, climate education is not just about cultivating skills, but also reshaping the mindsets of future generations. This is why we must center the wisdom of indigenous people as guardians of traditional knowledge, which puts Mother Earth in the center.
On a final note, understanding young people not only as beneficiaries but as active players, and as a form of supporting inter-generational learning and capacity building, I’d like to extend our sincere invitation for the Secretary General to receive our Global Youth Statement in Dubai later this year.
Please support us in this fight for real implementation of the policies.
Let’s work for system change together, starting with education!