The Protect Our Planet (POP) Movement Net Zero Video Series
We cannot think of a better way for this website to celebrate the New Year than to relay to all of our followers at COP26 and beyond this brilliant series of interviews put together by the Protect Our Planet ‘POP’ Movement and Planet Classroom Network! It has so much of what we best like and most admire!
These interviews directly reinforce and build the experience and skills of the formidable young climate activists conducting them.
They retain the closest links with the best available climate science, and make new connections between young climate activists and some of the most distinguished leaders in climate science and policy.
All of this will be needed. COP27 made real progress in establishing frameworks for addressing ‘loss and damage’, but little progress in getting nations to deliver the ‘simple political will’ to make real emissions reductions and to address adaptation fully and effectively. More work, more advocacy, and more inspirational and well-prepared young activists are needed to take the arguments forward for the Global Stocktake in 2023 and for COP28 in the UAE, which is currently set to have as its President the CEO of a company producing 4 million barrels of oil, 11.5 billion cubic feet of gas, per day. We know there is a huge amount left to do. But sometimes, as here, the response just seems to hit the spot, and to recharge one’s confidence that these great challenges can be addressed with determination.
Our thanks and congratulations to the POP Movement, to Planet Classroom Network, and all participants in these great interviews! We have asked Philo Magdalene, POP Youth Mentor, to tell us a bit more about how they came to be put together.
Here is a part of what she told us –
Philo Magdalene:
“The POP (Protect Our Planet) Movement was founded on Earth Day in 2016, by the late Dr. R.K. Pachauri, a Nobel Peace Laureate and former Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), who believed that dealing with climate change requires youth-led actions, inspired by knowledge about the problem and its solutions.
Over the last five years, the POP Movement has mobilized and mentored young people around the world, inspiring them with the knowledge to undertake projects and implement actions in their schools, colleges, communities, and homes. With a mission to ultimately reach the size, scale, and momentum to become a global movement, the POP Movement seeks to promote youth leadership to tackle climate change through unique and innovative technology-based solutions, community-driven regional projects, and advocacy. Partnerships and meaningful collaborations with individuals, organizations, and institutions in different countries across sectors have remained POP’s cornerstone in this endeavour.
In January 2022, POP Movement joined forces with Planet Classroom to launch the Net Zero Video and Podcast Series in which youth leaders from POP track the progress being made by international thought leaders to achieve Net Zero by 2050.
Rationale
The gap between where we are now – the pathways for decarbonization that nations have submitted and the pathways that science is telling us are required if we are going to stick to the 1.5-degree target planetary warming ceiling – is vast. At COP26, almost 200 countries and parties agreed to decarbonization plans. The road to Net Zero includes phasing out coal power, getting rid of fossil fuel subsidies, curtailing deforestation, encouraging investment in renewables, focusing on adaptation policies for both wealthy and developing nations, and working together to deliver.
The number of countries announcing pledges to achieve Net Zero emissions over the coming decades continues to grow but what will it take to accomplish the goal and give the world an even chance of limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees? COP26, and now COP27 too, is over. How will youth keep the drive to 1.5 alive?
Net Zero Video and Podcast Series
Youth climate leaders from nations around the world have created an original video and podcast series with their local environmental thought leaders, global leaders as well as other key stakeholders to follow-up on the progress countries are making on their climate pledges since COP26. In this one-of-a-kind multi-stakeholder and intergenerational interview series, youth challenge leadership on how they can achieve Net Zero and why it matters. “
