Role of youth to combat the climate giant

Chulani with the core team

Kegalle survey briefing with COSTI

Leo clubs conducting the Colombo survey

Students from universities in the core team

Trained team for the survey in Kegalle

At the end of the year 2015, the city of Paris witnessed the world’s biggest conference on climate change in the 21st century, where an Accord was introduced, which aimed at transforming world’s fossil fuel-driven economy and to rein in global warming for the next decade. This historic global agreement on climate change was agreed and ratified by officials from 195 nations with the primary goal of phasing out carbon emissions by the later part of this century.

Sri Lanka is a highly vulnerable climate change country due to its high exposure to potential hazards and low economic power to tolerate impacts. It was very evident from the several complaints of high temperatures followed by torrential rains and disasters in several parts of Sri Lanka while countries in the northern hemisphere recorded one of the warmest winters on record. 

Future generations of Sri Lanka need to be made aware of the serious threats of climate change and should be empowered to take the initiatives to combat climate change. But the fact remains, whether the Sri Lankan youth are aware and/or ready to face this challenge? Do the youth need to know about the climate change? Is it realistic to get the contribution of young undergraduates and graduates to combat climate change? After engaging in number of climate change initiatives these questions were raised by group of young people – Chulani Kandage, Taamara de Silva and Sajith Wijesuriya – to develop further initiatives in Sri Lankan Climate Change Context. 

The 3Cs (Climate Change Coalition) project is an initiative of Earth Lanka Youth Network, where the project included three sub projects being development of youth activist task force, presentation of outcomes at the 20th Conference of United Nations Framework Convention to the Climate Change held in Lima Peru in 2014 (COP 20) and conducting an island wide assessment among youth on climate change in research aspects. 

Founder of the project Chulani Kandage and Co-Founder Taamara de Silva believe youth has an exceptional power and responsibility in changing the world for its betterment and the graduates of environmental science related degrees in Sri Lanka have a great responsibility of acting as key players in addressing environmental problems of Sri Lanka.

Kandage stated: “This project aims at exploring the challenges faced by Sri Lankan undergraduates and define a methodology to bring out the best of their knowledge and skills to find out the solutions for climate change issues in Sri Lanka. Findings of this case study were successfully presented at UNFCCC COP 20 Conference in Lima, Peru. Twenty undergraduates of Sri Lankan universities actively took part in this project. Further, we are expecting to provide them with the opportunity to get practically involved in number of initiatives and develop their skills and related knowledge. 

“It was a great pleasure for me to chair the project and to present the findings at the National Side Event organised by the Climate Change Secretariat Ministry of Environment UNFCCC COP 20 Conference in Lima, Peru 2014. Firstly I would like to thank Earth Lanka for inviting me to chair this project and all the young undergraduates from different local universities for participating and engaging in the project. At the successful completion of this event I thank Earth Lanka, board members of this project, undergraduates who have taken part in this project, Secretariat for Climate Change, Ministry of Environment, USAID, Saro Thirupathi, Rajeev Kumar, Nilma Dole, and all other parties who have kindly supported this project.”

This project has been endorsed by the Coordinating Secretariat of Science, Technology and Innovation (COSTI) and United Nations Information Centre, partnered with USAID, Sri Lanka Power Shift, Youthlink, National Youth Service Council, Young Environmentalists Society of Sri Lanka, Leo District 306A2 and Rotaract Club of Mid-Town.

“This is the second climate action project initiated by Earth Lanka after the successful campaign of ‘Make It Green Again’ launched at the 17th conference of parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Durban South Africa. (COP 17). It was a great effort of Chulani Kandage. It is sad that after completion of the project she was diagnosed with a recurrent brain tumour and she is currently undergoing treatment at the Wolton Nuero Centre in UK. 

“I would like to thank Dr. Sunimal Jayathunge, Director of Climate Change Secretariat, Ministry of Environment of Sri Lanka, for providing us an opportunity to present our project at the National side event of COP 20. Further, I would like to thank all partners of the project, especially Professor Ajith De Alwis, Chairman of the Coordinating Secretariat for Science and Technology, for assisting us with stage 3 of the project for ongoing island-wide youth survey, and Hiranthi Gunewardena, OIC of United Nations Information Centre,” said Sudarsha De Silva, Chief Editor of Earth Lanka and founder of Earth Lanka youth network. 

The Stage 3 of this project commenced prior to the COP 21 and the youth public survey campaign is being done currently in several districts of Sri Lanka. This island wide youth survey will be carried out in every district of Sri Lanka. Similarly an online survey will also take place enabling young people of Sri Lanka to take part in the survey. The island wide survey is headed by Susantha Udagedara along with Senior Researchers of Coordinating Secretariat for Science, Technology and Innovation Sri Lanka with the support of two Senior Statisticians namely Nanadana Gunaratne, Senior Statistician Corproate Sector, and Priyadharshana Dharmawardena, Senior Statistician Census and Statistics, Department of Sri Lanka.

COSTI has initiated a survey on ‘Measurement of Climate Change Awareness of youth’ which will assist to create a youth led task force to develop climate change awareness in Sri Lanka in collaboration with Earth Lanka. Sudarsha and Susantha of Earth Lanka are instrumental in designing the survey, developing the questionnaire (in a panel), sample sizes calculation for all 25 districts and determination of sampling methods, training the data collectors and monitoring data collection, data organisation and management, analysing of data and making valid, reliable and precise conclusions, data validation with other available reliable sources and report writing. 

A pilot study was conducted in Kegalle District with the sample size of nearly 300 among a population of 127,000. A sample was taken in consideration of the better representation of the youth population within the district, said Ranjan Joseph, Senior Statistician of COSTI.

More efforts must be made to ensure that youth are ready to take advantage of new environment oriented employment opportunities. Growing attention to climate change and sustainable development offers a chance for green economic growth around the world. Green jobs not only provide much-needed employment opportunities for youth, they also give youth an outlet to contribute directly to the fight against climate change by adopting green behaviours in the workplace as well as in their private lives. 

(To get in touch with the survey please write to [email protected].)