Thankfully, many young people from all over the world have been following Greta Thunberg’s steps while fighting for a more eco-friendly world. In Brazil, an example of a climate change activist is Paloma Costa Oliveira, 27, who is one of the coordinators of “Engajamundo”, which is an ecological program: an organization formed exclusively by young people that works to mobilize youth on climate change. Also, she became an intern at the “ISA” office (Instituto Socioambiental), which means “social-environmental institute” in Brasilia, while studying law at the University of Brasilia (UnB) in 2015. In addition, in 2018, she was responsible for one of the installations of the World Water Forum, through “Engajamundo”, which took place in Brasilia. Paloma also created the “Ciclimáticos” project, in which she travels by bicycle with other people to register and publicize initiatives on climate change. 

Also, because of Bolsonaro’s government, who is the current Brazilian President, our country was not supposed to participate in the UN climate change summit, which is a global meeting that happened in New York, United States. This happened because the president didn’t present a new proposal that showed the government’s ambition regarding climate change. However, Brazil had the opportunity to participate through Paloma, who was chosen to speak alongside the UN Secretary-General and two other young people, including Greta Thunberg. “People are being impacted today. We already have technologies and initiatives to combat and adapt to climate change that are already working. What we need now is for national and local public managers to transform these solutions into public policies, ”said Paloma, when asked why young people should engage in the issue of climate change.

Links to the articles and the video of Paloma’s speech: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9QzCLYamDQ&feature=emb_logo

https://www.engajamundo.org/2019/09/23/discurso-climate-summit/

https://www.socioambiental.org/pt-br/noticias-socioambientais/jovem-ativista-brasileira-abre-cupula-de-clima-da-onu-em-nova-iorque

 The more developed countries are the ones which have benefited the most from using fossil fuels, which are mostly located in the North. The world’s largest oil producer is Saudi Arabia; Russia is the country that has the largest reserves of natural gas; the United States and China are the major coal-producing countries and the United States is the country which consumes the most fossil fuels. Therefore, countries can benefit from the production of oil, because of the exportation, like Saudi Arabia, or from the use of it, like the United States. However, the ones that will suffer the consequences of the high scale use of fossil fuels are the smaller ones, with a low economy, since they won’t have funds to combat the consequences of the use of these materials. In addition, countries located in areas threatened by natural disasters will suffer the consequences of climate change, too, and it becomes even worse if the country is poor, because they won’t have funds to recover from all the destruction caused. This is why the biggest countries, economically speaking, should care more about the environment, because even though they have conditions to escape from these consequences, other countries will be harmed in a near future. 

A big part of the consequences of the burning of fossil fuels correspond to natural disasters, and some examples of populations and countries who are the most affected and vulnerable to climate change are:

- Japan: the heavy rains, the heatwave, the Osaka earthquake and typhoon Jebi, which devastated Japan in 2018, made it the country most threatened by climate change. The weather has already caused 1,282 deaths in the country.

-Philippines: Typhoon Mangkhut's passage through the Philippines in 2018 affected more than 250,000 people across the country, leaving at least 59 dead due to torrential rains. Other phenomena caused another 455 deaths in the country in the same year. In addition, there was an economic loss of more than 4.54 billion dollars.

-Germany: In 2018, a heatwave made this the warmest year in the country's history, causing damage to the agricultural sector of more than 3.5 billion dollars. Meteorology caused 1,246 deaths, losses corresponding to 5.038 billion dollars.

-Haiti: This is the country with the highest number of deaths from natural disasters, according to the UN, resulting in 229,699 deaths. This country was devastated by a terrible earthquake in 2010 and passed through three years of drought and was also hit by Hurricane Matthew on October 4, 2016. Also, the sea level rises every year and due to the fact that Haiti is a poor country, it gets even harder to recover from the destruction. 

I believe Global North countries do have a moral obligation to reduce our emissions. They are the major GreenHouse Gases emitters because these are, mostly, more developed countries and, consequently, have a bigger industrial activity. However, these countries must change some habits and laws. This must happen as soon as possible because these emissions are harmful to the environment and a lot of countries, and the nations that truly suffer the consequences of it are not the ones which are using or selling fossil fuels, but the poor ones which do not have conditions to fight against the consequences these gases bring, like natural disasters. 

To help solve this problem, not only the Global North countries but all the nations, including Brazil, should invest more and more in new ways to obtain energy and use renewable energy, like obtaining it from solar panels, for instance. 

In order to move towards climate justice, my school has been trying to make all of our energy come from the sun through solar panels. This should also happen in my neighborhood, and more recyclable waste bins should be spread there, too. In this way, not only activists or authorities take action, but every single person does, so we become even stronger to fight against climate changes!

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