Tashkent, May 10, 2022. To experience the atmosphere of international climate negotiations and understand why environmental problems are being addressed the way as of today - this was the goal of the training "International climate change negotiations", which was attended by students of the universities in Tashkent.

The participation of youth in climate action plays an important role in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals and fulfilling the commitments made by countries under the Paris Agreement of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Solving problems related to climate change requires joint efforts with consideration of features and interests of all parties.

Addressing the environmental issues requires a collaborative effort as them affect all countries in all continents in the world. While modeling the international climate change negotiation process, students used the “World Climate methodology” to expose students to a simulation of climate change negotiations whereby students had to take into account various perspectives to reach a global agreement to reduce global temperature rise by 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050. 

At the event, students familiarized with the forecasted scenarios of climate change in  the developed and developing counties . Students were split into several groups to represent various global stakeholders in climate change negotiations including the most climate change vulnerable countries as well as the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases. Two rounds of negotiations have taken place whereby students, representing the different countries , had to agree of actions to be taken to prevent global temperature rise.

The dilemmas face by the students included on how to curtail climate change while keeping the economic growth, how to finance green developments and how to adapt to the adverse impacts  of climate change. While developed nations, historically, take responsibility for higher volumes of GHG emissions and have financial reserved to address the burning issues, developing nations often lack such reserves, but suffer the most from climate change impacts. Students were discussing on how efforts to increase afforestation and reduce emissions could be synchronized with consideration of the different standpoints of developed and developing nations.

Farangiz Atamullayeva, a student of the Tashkent Institute of Architecture and Civil Engineering, shared her experience: “At first the task seemed clear and straightforward, but after the first round of negotiations it became clear that compromise between different parties is not easy. The first round has demonstrated that the measures that we have agreed fall short of solving the problem of temperature rise, and even the second round where more drastic measures were proposed has only brought us a small step forward to address the situation”.

“Indeed, climate change negotiations are complex and the global community is yet to propose a working solution to curb the temperature rise. Paris Agreement has brought humanity a step forward towards the solution, but details and individual actions are yet to be determined and implemented”, said Alexey Semenov, UNDP project expert.

Engagement of youth in climate agenda is very important for future progress and the UNDP project ‘Policy action for climate security in Central Asia - Phase II’, implemented by UNDP in cooperation with the Center of Hydrometeorological Services (Uzhydromet) of the Republic of Uzbekistan, and funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is aiming to conduct a series of events for the youth to engage in climate related activities. The future is built today and the youth of today will live in the future that we envisage at this moment in time.