The inaugural Wokingham Youth Climate Conference will take place next week, with the event adapted to run online. We are delighted that a modified format of the Youth Climate Conference will be released daily on the Wokingham BC YouTube channel, linked below. It had been planned for March this year but was postponed due to COVID-19.
“Our guest speakers and staff have put together a series of fantastic presentations and panels to help young people continue to engage on this topic,” said Cllr Murray.
“I was delighted to be involved and ask questions on behalf of those who sent them in and it was great to hear highlights of the work we are doing to help tackle climate change in Wokingham Borough.”
Part of the council’s climate emergency action plan sets out how the council will encourage climate friendly behaviours through school visits and educational projects as well as facilitating young people to lead behaviour change across the borough.
“The borough’s young people are already incredibly engaged on the topic of the climate emergency and we hope they find what we’ve put together for them educational and informative,” added Cllr UllaKarin Clark, executive member for children’s services.
Recorded content from all the participants that were due to attend in March is being shown so that young people will have the opportunity to engage with experts on the topic of climate change.
Students have already been taking part in the conference by providing some of the questions that were posed by Cllr Gregor Murray, executive member for resident services, communications and emissions, including climate emergency, to a panel of staff from Wokingham Borough Council. Young people will be able to further continue that dialogue by commenting in the comments section of the video to which experts will respond.
Topics covered as part of the week, from 12-16 October, include housing, waste, energy, tree-planting, biodiversity and public health.
There will also be videos from Oxfam on fast fashion by Ruth Gibbs, Reading University on Climate Justice by Dr. Alex McLaughlin and Africa Bauza Garcia-Arcicollar & My Journey on sustainable travel by Domhnall McFarline and Julie Pillai. The council panel is hosted by Gregor Murray and has expert contributions from Diana Tovar (Climate Emergency Strategy), Irum Galzar (Waste & Recycling), Ian Gough (Energy), Mustafa Kamara (Public Health) & Duncan Fischer (Ecology). There’s some fantastic contributions and we recommend taking some time to watch the reimagined conference.
The content will also be used on social media and other council platforms to help inform residents about the council’s work to make Wokingham a carbon neutral borough by 2030.