Campaign on climate change launched anew

DAVAO CITY — A campaign to harness the youth’s social media presence to produce positive changes in climate change awareness and mitigation was launched in Davao City Wednesday.

Called #nowPH: One Million Filipino Youth Voices for Climate Action, the campaign aims to unite the voice of the Filipino youth for the 2015 Paris Climate Conference in December, where the country takes on a crucial role in negotiations for reductions in carbon emissions to prevent a 2-degree-Celsius rise in global temperature.

The Climate Change Commission and the National Youth Commission initiated the campaign in partnership with the United States Agency for International Development.

The people behind #nowPH (or the Not on Our Watch) bank on the potential of the Internet to empower young people to raise public consciousness on the science of climate change and on promoting 15 ways to low emission development strategies (LEDS) in schools and communities.

Ana Gaddi, who works as one of the many young people in the CCC said only a few of people her age possess good knowledge about climate change.

However, her job has made her a witness to the growing number of mitigation and awareness projects of the youth around the country. Since CCC started its operations in 2010, the organization has been actively engaging youth to initiate programs on climate change.

Pebbles Sanchez, 26, CCC planning officer, said the online component of their campaign will enable visitors to their website to access relevant information about climate change before they may fill out a form, signifying their commitment to the cause.

Sanchez said the offline component of the campaign like Wednesday’s workshop in the MinDA office trains youth leaders from different organizations, so that they can initiate climate change projects by themselves in the future. With the potential of the Internet, Sanchez said they hope to instill learning in the one million youth who will commit to the project despite the many distractions online.

“I think that it’s just a matter of guiding them [on how to wisely use digital tools] so that they will develop interest and, along the way, care for the environment,” she said. “I don’t want to think that the youth are apathetic about sociallyelevant causes like the environment.”

Sanchez described the online behavior of the youth as “very active.” #nowPH hopes to use this engagement to further advocacies on the environment. (mindanews)