BY AINDREE CHATTERJEE, HEAD OF SUMMIT PRESS TEAM
With great pleasure, I would like to declare that The E3 Summit is in just two days!! So, how does a little sneak peek into our first day sound! We will be kicking off the event at around 9:00 UTC. The help desk will obviously be open from beforehand to help you with a smooth enrolment process and Zoom room allotment.As you all know, MUN Impact works extensively with the youth to help promote sustainable development at all levels.
Our first days’ events focus on the Earth in E3 Summit, with workshops centred around SDG 13 and 15. But the highlight of our day is the forum on Youth Involvement in achieving Net Zero through Advocacy and Direct Action. The discussion and debates will centre around what the youth can do in ensuring implementation of sustainable development in their surroundings. Advocacy is one of the most important ways of promoting this as many important messages are spread verbally. Now it may make you curious as to what I mean by achieving “net zero”. Net Zero means attaining a balance between the quantity of greenhouse gas produced and quantity of that gas present in the air in general. The United Nations aims to achieve this by the year 2050.
Carbon emissions have actually increased over the past years, even after the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed in 1992. Achieving net zero emissions is possible by switching to more eco-friendly fuels and reducing the rate of urbanization. The ‘net’ in net zero stands for the fact that we have to achieve balance, rather than reducing emissions to zero by 2050 as the latter is not a plausible situation.
Does this topic interest you? Then don’t forget to join your forum from 14.30 to 16 UTC on 3rd September. Our esteemed speakers, Tasneem Essop(WWF), Amy Wickham(UNICEF),Giulia Jacovella(UNDP), and Christian Schwarzer of Global Youth Biodiversity Network, will address the issue and attendees can engage in discussion with them. The role of the youth is phenomenal in helping to attain Net Zero as they are the ones who are better equipped to reach out to their peers.Additionally,we will be having our plenary session prior to the event at around 13 UTC.
Our student presenters will also be doing presentations centered around the themes of SDG 13 and SDG 15, thereby aiming to promote the importance of saving and sustaining the Earth and environment as we know it now.Our first sessions will be held at 9UTC. Elsie Ishami Muhirwa, of Youth for Youth Rwanda, will be presenting on “Youth for Youth Rwanda: An NGO started by a Rwandan teenager, in our Session 1.A”. Session 1.B will be on “Think Blue and go green”,and will be conducted by MUNI Global student, Amaya Ranatunge. Taking the themes further, the workshops from 10 UTC by Noor Al-Zubi and Monika Jangir will be focused on collective cooperation to prevent climate crisis and on quality education(SDG 4).
The 11.00 UTC to 12.00 UTC session will be conducted by our very own high school leaders, who have contributed extensively to the 100K Deeds Challenge- Tanisha Saxena, Komal Gupta and Luna Mercuri. The workshop is particularly targeted towards those keen to study how climate change has impacted terrestrial ecosystems.
Rya Kuewor of Refugee Integration Organization will, at the same time, be conducting a workshop on “Taking the Backseat”. It aims to encourage audiences to question how problem solving should go about in the procedure of innovation.All these topics indirectly aim to educate youngsters about environmental hazards and through activities and ventures during sandbox, they can come up with ideas to promote Net Zero through Advocacy and Direct Action. Around these times, the Sandbox strand will also commence! Don’t forget to check our articles on the Sandbox strand to know more.
Post break, Meera Ranjan and Prince Santosh Kumar of 100K Deeds will give a demonstration on responsible tourism, which will be an insight into ways to reduce pollution during traveling and will advise us on how we can tour sustainably. Katie Purtill and Annie Fromson-Ho of OneSky, our partner, will host a session on building better futures for the world’s most vulnerable children”, from 14.30 to 15.30 UTC.Joshua Gray of OMAC will conduct a workshop/Arctic Council from 15.30 to 16.30 UTC. It will be a forum where attendees can discuss the Arctic Circle and the challenges facing the region.He has a passionate interest in the Arctic, especially issues facing Arctic Indigenous peoples, and he is keen to share this interest with other students and pupils.
InnerVIew-USA ONLY’s Kristine Sturgeon will present on an SDG-based learning platform for American youth in another session at the same time. Sandi Gendi, Shagun Sethi and Lucia Ferreira of One Shared World will finally conclude our long list of sessions, with their workshop on “Youth and Interdependence: A look into the work of OneShared.World”. We are really grateful to our partners and student presenters for their amazing contribution in making this vision a reality.
I am sure you are going to really enjoy the day and if you would like to hang out more with us, do not hesitate to join us for a social hour at the end of the day!