Young European climate activists from the Fridays for future movement presented their joint demands on Friday to limit warming "below 1.5 ° C" after five days of debate in Lausanne, Switzerland, with 450 participants.
It was the first time these teenagers and young adults, inspired by the example of Swede Greta Thunberg, herself present in Lausanne, and from all over Europe - from Ireland to Russia and the Scandinavia to Spain - had the opportunity to meet and discuss the future of their movement.
Three common demands
They adopted by consensus a "Lausanne climate declaration" and three common demands: "to ensure climate justice and equity", "to maintain the global temperature rise below 1.5 ° C compared to pre-industrial levels" and "listen to the best science currently available," according to a press release.
"To reach a consensus is always difficult (...) but I think it's completely human," said one of the participants, Maria, 17, who came from Greece, at a press conference. At the end of this week, "we are stronger and united than before," she said.
This document is "a non-binding declaration," says the press release, the young people present at this meeting do not represent their countries.
New global strike in September
Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, a Belgian climate scientist and former vice-president of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Giec), encouraged these young people, who were to demonstrate in the afternoon in Lausanne, to "continue their good work".
This youth movement, like that of Youth for Climate, was born after the initiative of the young Greta Thunberg to start a strike of the weekly school for the climate. In March, hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren took to the streets to demand stronger and faster action from governments to fight global warming.
They plan a new global strike in September, when a UN summit on the subject will be held in New York.