St. Paul’s University College at the University of Waterloo Environmental Advocacy
What do you feel is the biggest challenge for young people globally?
I’m trying to take the longer view, and the longer view for me is that the climate crisis is the most serious and crucial challenge that faces young people globally. I say that because the effects of climate change are already happening all around the world. We may not be seeing the impacts of climate change as much in Canada right now, but we have to realize that it is already affecting our global community and we have to do everything we can to reduce the effects of climate change because it will affect our lives in the future. People are dying in other parts of the world from the effects of drought and natural disasters that are enhanced by climate change.
Right now we’re young people but we’re going to be living with the consequences of our actions or lack thereof in the present. So we have to do much more on climate change. And how do we do that? Through things like sustainable development and trying our best to shift to a more sustainable society in terms of energy, such as renewable energy, more sustainable food systems, more conscious purchasing decisions and more active lifestyles.
Could you tell us about the work that you do?
I’ve been focused on the environment and sustainability for the last five or six years. Since I was young I’ve been very passionate about the environment and it has led me to be increasingly active and engaged in environmental issues. My main involvement has been at
the global level. I’ve led youth delegations to United
Nations Summits. For example, in June of 2012 I guided and led a delegation of 14 young people from across Canada and around the world to the Rio+20 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This was the largest United Nations conference in human history focused on sustainable development, and we were there as a youth delegation to speak about Arctic issues and the importance of sustainability in the Arctic. The reason why we focused on the Arctic was because of another experience that I had the privilege of being a part of, which was an expedition to the Canadian Arctic back in 2010 with Students on Ice, an organization based out of Gatineau, Quebec. I got to learn a lot about how fragile the Arctic environment is and the richness of the culture.
More recently, I coordinated two youth delegations to the recent COP19 UN Climate Negotiations in Warsaw, Poland. One was the Students on Ice Alumni Delegation and the second was a new delegation from my university called the University of Waterloo Coalition for Sustainable Development. These two delegations
have two different mandates but they are both there advocating for the need for sustainability in our society and for our planet so we got to do some really good stuff when we were there.
One of our big highlights was that we had a meeting with Canada’s Minister
of Environment, the Honourable Leona Aglukkaq.
We spoke directly to her about our vision for the future of the Arctic and what our opinions and ideas are for the Arctic. As you know, Canada is an Arctic state and we’re very much invested in the Arctic. With climate change happening so intensely in the Arctic, it’s changing the region very rapidly, environmentally and economically, and we wanted to meet with her to express our views about how we can manage the Arctic in a more sustainable manner.
Do you have a favourite quote? What is it? “ 14 iAM Youth as... Global Citizens
Every day you go to bed, your life is one day shorter, so make the most of every day.
– Jimmy Chin
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