Indigenous Youth Leaders

There are more than 370 million Indigenous people in some 70 countries worldwide. Indigenous cultures and communities are precious intrinsically, but also as guides for all humanity with direct relevance for our sustainable development across generations on Earth. Since the 20th century, humanity has been learning to operate as a globally interconnected civilization, represented clearly by the “common concern of humankind” in our climate with its variability on a planetary scale across decades-to-centuries.

The Global Summit main objectives are:

• Providing a ‘one of a kind’ platform to accelerate global engagement with Indigenous youth communities, cultures, languages, ethnicities, countries and continents across the world;
• Sharing youth perspectives, approaches, observations, concerns, interests and strategies to address the local impacts of climate change across Indigenous communities on Earth;
• Stimulating lifelong learning among Indigenous youth to contribute with knowledge and skills in the evolution of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and related global agreements that have regular Conferences of the Parties;
• Enhancing intergenerational synergies in view of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and other Indigenous declarations;
• Inspiring Indigenous youth leaders to think short-to-long term across their lifetimes into the 22nd century to empower progress with sustainable development at local-to-global levels.

The breadth of challenges posed by climate change at local-to-global levels is a multilateral concern across the spectrum of subnational-national-international jurisdictions. At the same time, rapidly changing climatic conditions have increased levels of uncertainty and anxiety among the youth on Earth. Nonetheless, the unprecedented mobilization of youth around the world shows the massive power they possess as essential contributors to informed decisionmaking on planetary scale, which is symbolized by Earth’s climate. Youth and especially Indigenous youth have key roles to enhance multilateral cooperation on climate action, helping humanity to operate for the benefit of all on Earth across generations.