COP29: Where Have All the Children Gone?
The UNFCCC has Failed to Excite the Kids (and the Media Stayed Away)
I have grown immune to the United Nation’s cynical use of children at their global conferences. Every opening ceremony usually involves articulate tweens reading a speech to some UN plenary about how their tomorrow depends on the decisions world leaders take today. Children speak with a voice of innocence offering clear ‘black or white’ solutions. And who would dare argue with a child?
As parents, we have learnt to simplify our answers to our children and not get lost in an “It’s complicated” explanation. And most UN bodies want simple solutions to complicated global issues. On climate change, the solution is to cut CO2 emissions in half while funding mitigation efforts for developing countries. It’s simple, the children have spoken, so just shut up and sign our declaration.
At COP29 in Baku, there have been very few children attending to haunt us by reminding the plenary that their futures have been stolen by our intransigence. There was no angry teenager, grumpy from a long trip on a private yacht, pointing fingers about our capitalist economies and guilting us into action. Maybe as petulant teens, they had thrown their hands in the air, concluding they were smarter than the adults in the room and so they went on to do their own things. Wise choice.
In case you are not aware, the UNFCCC COP29 Climate Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan is still going on. It has been, to say the least, uneventful with more protests about the cost of a hamburger at the conference center than about the slow progress in negotiations. Maybe they need to recruit some more children to lead protests to make the news.
A Long History of Child Abuse
Since the Canadian activist, David Suzuki, contracted his eloquent 12-year-old daughter, Severn, to read a prepared speech at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, claiming she was “only a child”, it has been common practice for NGOs to use children to do their lobbying for them. And the UN has been a willing partner in this form of child abuse.
I wrote an article more than a decade ago entitled: How to Use a Child. The question is simple: If we don’t want children working in factories or mines, why is it OK to enlist them as lobbyists. I was reacting to how the UN kept Malala Yousafzai in the firing line of Taliban militants by making her the front for their campaign for equal rights to education. A good speaker, a brave young woman, but she should never have been put at such a risk when she was 11 years old. Then there was Rachel Parent who fronted Kids Right to Know (to increase sales for her father’s Nutrition House empire).
But nowhere have children been more abused by campaign pressure groups than with the climate lobby.
Extinction Rebellion recruited armies of children to strategically weep for the cameras in front of banners blocking airport roads.
It just so happened that a PR expert was in Stockholm, passing by the Swedish Parliament on the first day of Greta Thunberg’s Climate Strike.
Looking back at the Fridays For Future’s constant media drip, these kids seemed awfully good at lobbying, communications and mobilizing events.
Of course the public, via a passive, unsuspecting or complicit media, thought this all happened in a natural and spontaneous manner. They believed children were able to organize press conferences, travel the world and write their own speeches on complex subject matter. The children speaking out come across as innocent, genuine, demanding simple action points and emotionally moving – the perfect activist campaign pawn.
If you tell a child to write a letter to Santa in order to get a gift, they will. So activist NGOs pulling the strings behind articulate children had a good thing going for the last five years, giving these vulnerable, impressionable young people media attention in exchange for some simple talking points. But at a certain age, children stop believing in some magical being living at the North Pole (or some magical fix to save humanity). They move on to other things.
Boycott Baku
The children are boycotting the COP29 in Azerbaijan for many reasons. The Gretistas were speaking out against the regime in Baku from nearby Georgia where they decided to hold their own demonstrations. Others, who are no longer leading the public discourse, said they were going to Rio to protest at the G20 instead … but I didn’t them making any news (by the way, in case you did not hear about it, there was a G20 meeting last week).
It was probably wise for young activists to avoid Azerbaijan. Their colorful president was not in the mood to tolerate nonsense … as he reminded the attendees in his opening speech. It is rather difficult to march a group of kids out to rally the crowds when you are campaigning against a “gift from God”.
Many national delegations either sent lower level representatives to COP29, with some pulling out just before or during the first week. Maybe the children stayed away because there were very few global leaders in attendance that they could berate or publicly condemn.
Some complained that the Azeri authorities had made it very difficult to protest and had even imprisoned certain climate activists. (That’s horrible - someone should tell that to the Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil campaigners presently rotting away in British cells.) I don’t think the police in Baku would arrest the children, but the campaigners flying in the kids to use as camera fodder definitely deserve jail-time.
In any case, if there are no children at UN events to yell, accuse, weep or chant, then there is no drama for the media to cover. The failure of COP29 to drive the narrative is a good example of why activist groups need to use children to run an effective campaign (and why this kind of child abuse needs to be prohibited).
Things in the COP activist carnival world have gotten so bad that a group of UN Elders and other dignitaries wrote a letter urging the COP process to change. Their letter made a curious point that only countries that are committed to the UNFCCC Paris agenda should be allowed to host meetings. In other words, if you don’t agree with us, you have no right to participate as equals in the dialogue.
No one has ever accused UN agencies of being democratic.
Have the Children Moved On?
Greta Thunberg is perhaps the best example of what happens when the youth lose faith. That haunting Orwellian icon is now more concerned about global politics, campaigning to to stop the Gaza Genocide and impose sanctions on Israel. She spent the first week of COP 29 in nearby Georgia, leading protests against the perceived election fraud of the ruling party. Azerbaijan was mentioned only as another country that denies democracy.
There are, of course, more significant things to worry about. With the threat of a nuclear conflict in Europe, many children should start campaigning for peace and political dialogue. If children scare easily, then this one should get them shaking in their Skechers far more than any fear Extinction Rebellion could fabricate.
What will the NGOs do if the children are no longer interested in listening to them or serving as their campaign spokespersons? Kids follow what their friends are doing … and climate campaigning just isn’t something that excites their influencers anymore. In a generation where trends chase 16 second video clips, sustaining a campaign focus for more than a couple of months is quite a challenge.
The climate crisis class of 2019 has grown up. They were roughed up more than most going through adolescence with the survival of humanity thrust upon their shoulders. Climate anxiety became a buzzword because these children were badly abused and burdened by the older, single-minded, activist generation running the NGOs (and running out of ideas). I hope these young adults can now move on and won’t suffer any long-term effects from the years of dark, death-cult fearmongering they had been subjected to.
Where have all the children gone? They have gone off to grow up on their own. But while it might make global COP climate events less emotional and mediatic, I hope the activist community will leave the next generation alone and stop thinking about how they can use them.