Youth and Climate Change – Their Take

“While feeding ourselves, we should feed nature because it's by feeding nature that we will feed ourselves again.”

There was a frenzied tension and intensity at COP26. In the final days of the conference, delegations from around the world were deep in negotiations to address our world’s most dire crisis – climate change. Young people were leading the way. The biggest youth delegation ever called on world leaders to make the drastic changes needed to ensure our planet has a future. But will they listen?

Episode 4 of Better Food. Better World. takes us to the climate conference where Elizabeth Nyamayaro meets with the young people fighting for change. She speaks with Gernot Laganda, the Chief of the Climate Disaster Risk Reduction at the World Food Programme, to discuss the relationship between climate change and hunger before taking the time to talk with two youth leaders, Andrew Tangang of Restless Developments and Marie-Claire Graf of YOUNGO. They are the young leaders of today fighting for our tomorrow.

Key Moments

• 4:30 - Elizabeth describes how young people are more engaged than ever before on Climate Change. 
• 5:14 - ​​Gernot Laganda, the Chief of the Climate Disaster Risk Reduction at WFP discusses the huge task the WFP has before them and how progress on hunger has been rolled back by a decade due to climate change. 
• 10:03 - Youth leader Tangang Andrew tells Elizabeth fighting climate change should be a lifestyle.
• 17:15 - Marie-Claire Graf discusses the progress being made and work that still needs to happen. 
• 23:00 - Gernot Laganda returns to highlight how it’s all about the system. 
• 25:00 - Andrew Tangang and Marie-Claire discuss Greta Thunberg’s ‘Blah, Blah, Blah’ speech.
• 27:28 - Elizabeth and her youth guests share their wishes for a better food and a better world.

Selected Links:

https://www.wfp.org/

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Connect with Elizabeth and Our Guests:

Elizabeth Nyamayaro

Humanitarian and author of ‘I am a Girl From Africa’, Elizabeth Nyamayaro is the Special Advisor for the UN World Food Programme. Over the past two decades, she has worked at the forefront of global development and has held leadership roles at the World Bank, World Health Organization, UNAIDS, UN Women, and Merck. Her track record building and leading public-private partnerships is a key asset to WFP as it advocates for global solidarity to end world hunger.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/enyamayaro

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/enyamayaro/

Gernot Laganda - Chief of the Climate Disaster Risk Reduction at WFP

A geoscientist by training, Gernot Laganda has spent the past 20 years working at the nexus between disasters and development. In his role as the Chief of Climate and Disaster Risk Reduction Programs for United Nations’ World Food Programme, Gernot supports WFP country offices and the governments they serve developing food security strategies that benefit from innovation and strategic actions, while working with vulnerable communities. A 2016 Maurice R. Greenberg World Fellow at Yale University, Laganda has worked with the UN and NGOs in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, South Africa and the Asia/Pacific Region.