In today’s episode of the New Security Broadcast, ECSP’s Claire Doyle partnered with Elsa Barron at the Center for Climate and Security for a conversation with two young leaders who are working to tackle climate change and build peace: Christianne Zakour and Hassan Mowlid Yasin. Christianne is a volunteer with UNEP’s Major Group for Children and Youth and Hassan is co-founder of the Somali Greenpeace Association. On the episode, Christianne and Hassan share about the climate, equity, and conflict issues that motivate their work and describe how they think we can make progress towards a livable future for all.

Select Quotes:

Christianne Zakour

“We coordinated the Stockholm+50 Youth Task Force…We were able to get together a good number of people—fifty-something young people came together to create a youth handbook, a policy paper, and the timeline of youth activity going back to the 1970s that was supporting the Stockholm+50 conference in June last year.”

“I think there needs to be enabling environments. Within the Latin America and Caribbean region, we have an agreement called the Escazu Agreement…It stands for access to public information, access to justice, and defenders of the environment. Many countries have not signed on at this point, including my own Trinidad and Tobago. But it’s gone into effect now, as of either the last day or the day before. And I think it so succinctly sums up the areas that we need to work on. I think we could be much closer to peace building in the region if the other countries signed on.”

Hassan Mowlid Yasin

“In 2018, the frequent floods and drought that occurred in Somalia led millions of people to be displaced, and others to lose their properties. Some people included my closest relatives who used to live in the rural areas and who have a pastoralist background. They depended on the products of their animals. During this drought, most of those animals died, and my closest relatives were longer able to make a living. So in 2019, thinking, ‘what actually can we do about this?’ [I formed] an organization that speaks for the people of Somalia, for the grassroot communities—not in the sense of humanitarian response, but how they can become really resilient and adaptable to climate change.”

“When we go to the grassroot level, where the farming occurs, we listen to them. And when we listen to them, they tell us the solutions they have, which are affordable to implement. It’s through these solutions that we bring [ideas] to the international forums. We tell [the international community], ‘you don’t need to bring your solutions on the ground, the people have the solutions. Can you finance them, so that they can implement their solutions?’”