COP 26: Interviewing Changemakers

On their second day at the conference of parties, our student journalists focused their time on speaking to several changemakers tackling the climate crisis. The day was spent between the UN-managed Blue Zone and a return to the New York Times Climate Hub.

“At the beginning of the second day, I was excited and energised for going to the Blue Zone. I was really looking forward to seeing what it was like in there, as well as grateful for the opportunity to actually go there. The pavilion and all the countries’ stalls were extremely interesting, and the action zone was filled with journalists and famous broadcasting stations, as well as waves of interesting people.” enthused Politics student, George.

In the morning, Grace, George and Sam, headed to meet Old Leightonian and UNFCCC Secretariat, Julian Hodgkin. Students today recognise Hodgkin as the eponymous name of the legendary Jonathan Backhouse Hodgkin Speech Competition; born from Julian’s uncle in 1914, who incited that students should have the opportunity to develop the skill of “thinking on their feet.” In 2021, the team were able to reflect that very skill back to Julian as they stepped out of their comfort zone to represent their chool and peers among seasoned professionals. At the UNFCCC Capacity-building Hub, Julian was also generous to tour the students and bring them up to speed with everything going on there that day.

Following an interview with Julian, the group caught up with climate activist, Elizabeth Wathuti. George remarked, “The person who we met that inspired me the most was Elizabeth Wathuti, a 26-year-old climate activist from Kenya. We saw her as a panellist at the New York Times Climate Hub, and we were extremely lucky to organise a meeting with her at the Blue Zone. She was very insightful into what young people could do about climate change and made it clear that it is important that we use our voice.”

In 2019, Elizabeth was awarded the Africa Green Person of the Year Award and named as one of the 100 Most Influential Young Africans. She is the founder of the Green Generation Initiative and continues to be an influential figure in climate activism.

Another person the group were eager to have a conversation with was Paul Van Zyl, Chief Creative Officer of The Conduit. At the New York Times Climate Hub, Bella, Tisa, Finn and Edward spoke to Paul about social change.

George reflected, “I am still optimistic about our future now, but things that people said made me feel more confident that we could really reach the goal of 1.5 degrees, but we were also reminded of the challenges that we faced and that we would have to change the way that we are working now.”