COP27, the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, will be the 27th of its kind. Each year, the presidency rotates and in 2022, COP27 will take place in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt from 6 – 18 November under the Egyptian Government’s presidency.

Since 2021, the Future Leaders Network (FLN) has selected young leaders to represent the UK at COP, including for last year’s COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland. After fierce competition, FLN selected two young leaders – Anna Gardner and Marc Tilley –  to represent the views of UK youth at this year’s COP27 negotiations in Egypt.

Supporting them, in the areas of advocacy, communications and research, is a team of nine young delegates from the UK – Josh Oxby, Patricia Gonçalves, Nikita Shrubsole, Katie Riley, Hannah Harrison, Kayley Curtis, Madelaine Constance, Amy Campbell and Jasmine Brittan. The youth delegates’ purpose is to ensure that decisions and agreements reached by world leaders COP27 represent the views and needs of young people from across the UK. Our young team represents a talented and ambitious cross-section of the UK; spanning a range of interests, skills and experiences, but ultimately all converging on the desire to elevate young people’s voices and promote youth leadership in climate action.

In practice, this involves both speaking and listening. Before COP27 the delegation have been researching youth perspectives, especially in relation to progress since COP26 in Glasgow. During COP27 the delegation will connect with other young people to listen to their experiences and advocate collaboratively for meaningful youth participation in climate negotiations. After COP27, the delegation will produce a report reflecting on the processes of decision-making as well as the formal decisions that have been made. Social media will be used throughout to make COP27 accessible and engaging for as many young people as possible.

The COP27 youth delegates call for Dr Sameh Shoukry, the appointed COP27 president and Egypt’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, and his world leader counterparts to ensure a just energy transition by:

• Implementing finance for the jobs and skills agenda, promoting inter-industry and intergenerational equality;

• Providing specialised and ring-fenced finance to ensure youth inclusion;

• Ensuring youth-specific inclusion and participation in the energy transition policy process, including through regular consultations, accessible information and impact assessments and progress indicators.

Anna Gardner, COP27 Climate and Environment Delegate, commented:

“As young people from the UK, we are in a unique position to hold leaders accountable to the agreements made at Glasgow. If we’re serious about keeping 1.5 alive, we have to push harder for implementation.”

Commenting, Marc Tilley, COP27 Climate and Environment Delegate said:

“COP27 will be known as the “loss and adjustment” summit in recognition that we have collectively failed to mitigate the harm of climate change, and must now instead adapt to the irreparable damage we have done to our environment. Despite this, young people have been a continuous source of hope for the future, and I look forward to seeing young people take the lead at COP27 and beyond.”