For the past 14 years near the end of September, the United Nations has hosted Climate Week NYC, one of the largest, global climate events of its kind. During the week, the East Side buzzes with activity as influential leaders from the private sector, governmental agencies, the climate community, and the serving members of the United Nations General Assembly fill the City of New York. Though Baruch College lies only blocks away from the United Nations, partnerships between the two institutions have been rare. This year however, with the instrumental help of Professor Shelly Eversley of the Black and Latino Studies Department, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), an organization which advises the UN on driving its sustainable development agenda, brought a panel of young climate activists to Baruch College for People’s Climate Vote Live. Together, through a series of talks, fireside chats, and a lively Q&A with our students, the three speakers offered an engaging exploration of how policymakers and advocates can move from conversation to political action in the fight against the impending climate crisis.
Formally, the event highlighted the results of the UNDP’s latest project, The People’s Climate Vote, the largest survey of public opinion on climate change ever conducted. With 1.2 million respondents across 50 countries, the project uses a novel approach to bring everyday people’s voices front and center in the climate conversation. Poll questions asking respondents whether or not they felt climate change was an emergency and which government initiatives they supported, were distributed to users through advertisements in mobile gaming apps in 17 languages. The poll resulted in a unique sampling of people of all genders, ages, and educational backgrounds.
At the event, which was held in-person in The William And Anita Newman Vertical Campus Conference Center and live streamed around the world, coauthor of the People’s Climate Vote and internationally recognized expert on treaty negotiations around climate change, Cassie Flynn polled a full room of Baruch students, faculty, and staff. Like the respondents in the study, they were asked if they believed climate change was a global emergency. 100% of the audience said yes.
This majority response was typical of the study as a whole. When it comes to age, younger people (under 18) were more likely to say climate change is an emergency than older people, 65% of those aged 18-35 regardless of education, nationality, or economic status answered in the affirmative.
Flynn was soon joined by Ana Sophia Misfud, a climate advocate since middle school and one of Forbes 30 Under 30. Today, Ana Sophia is a Manager at Rocky Mountain Initiative where she works with cities and states to eliminate the use of fossil fuels in large buildings. Also making an appearance was Kevin Patel, the founder of OneUpAction International, an organization that supports and empowers marginalized youth by providing them with the resources they need to be advocates for their own communities on a range of environmental justice issues.
Perhaps most moving was the Q&A, as Baruch students from across disciplines lined up at the microphone to ask how an average person can create meaningful change around such a complicated, global issue.
In his welcome remarks at the event, President S. David Wu tied Baruch’s “ever-expanding commitment” to furthering research on climate change with the UN’s climate project.
“We will do this through our students—by launching them into climate-related leadership positions through our Climate Scholars Program, and through our faculty—by their groundbreaking research from the natural sciences to social sciences to the arts cross-discipline exhibitions. Their work helps us to understand what we stand to lose if we stay complacent, and what we stand to gain if we work together,” he said.
He went on to address how work represented by The Peoples Climate Vote aligns with Baruch’s mission to be the People’s University. “Our students are global,” he said, “they come here, in part, to learn how their voices can shape a more just and equitable future.”
In all, People’s Climate Vote Live represented a unique opportunity for Baruch students to join the conversation and to tangibly realize the ways in which their voices and insights matter. Their contributions, and Baruch’s partnership with UNDP, felt especially pertinent given that The People’s Climate Vote and its creative polling process, offers new ways to insure that the voices of youth activists from around the world are part of the climate conversation.
Check out a recording of the whole event on UNDP’s Twitter page.
