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Young negotiators inject 'new blood' into climate decision-making

(Reuters, 12 Mar 2021) Young climate activists are moving from the streets to negotiating seats of power - but plenty find obstacles in their way.

At the last major U.N. climate change talks, in Madrid in December 2019, Marie-Claire Graf, then 23, led Switzerland's negotiations on efforts to boost the capacity of developing countries to cut emissions and adapt to a warmer world.

Graf, a sustainability and politics student, had studied the issue and was asked by the Swiss president's office to take on the role as the best-qualified person for the job.

But some senior negotiators were not ready to accept that someone so young could be trusted with the task.

One asked Graf to put him in touch with the Swiss delegate in charge. "I told him that I am the Swiss negotiator leading on this matter," said Graf, now 24.

The European repeated his request, and when Graf said again she was the right person to speak with, "he just walked away".

"Clearly he couldn't get his head around the fact that a young woman could sit there and take decisions," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

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Reuters, 12 Mar 2021: Young negotiators inject 'new blood' into climate decision-making