 Good afternoon, Howard Wigg, Code Green, Think Tech, Hawaii, coming to you from Sunihara Lulu and the first state in the nation that declared the goal of 100% clean energy. If any of you out in the audience has not figured this out yet, I have figured it out. I am not leaving this planet alone, or I should say, alive, and since I know I'm going to be going at some point, I had gosh darned well better hand, any wisdom I can, I can to the younger generation and boy do we have the younger generation with us today, two students from Iolani School, very, very active in the Climate Future Forum, Lisa Kuharek and Audrey Lin. They actually appeared on this program a year ago and they have been going, I guess, non-stop ever since and we just, at least I am very inspired by them. I think anybody in the audience will be too. The future is in good hands with young ladies like this being very, very active out there in the community. So Lisa, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and then about what you're going to talk about and launch us into the program. Right. Hello everyone. Thank you so much for having me and Audrey in this show. It's amazing to be back bringing more information about the Climate Future Forum and the results of how it ended up going. See, I'm really grateful for this opportunity. So a little bit about myself. I'm currently a junior at Iolani School. I am originally from Ukraine, but it's my second year here in Hawaii already and I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity to be able to get involved in the youth advocacy and also in the climate change movement because it is something that I used to be doing in Ukraine as well. So again, I'm really grateful for the opportunity to be able to do this here in Hawaii as well and be able to promote the youth empowerment and youth advocacy on a state level while I'm here. So moving to the main topic of our presentation today is the Climate Future Forum that happened December 9th this year. Oh, already last year? Well, technically this again every year. It's still school for us. Talking a little bit more about how it all went. We had around 80 participants around the same amount of people that we had last year. That was an amazing combination of people that we were able to see. There are people coming from different schools, also people coming from different islands. It was truly amazing to see all the youth uniting around the same idea of the use of advocacy and climate action. The whole purpose of the event, Climate Future Forum, is to free this bridge between youth and the legislative system here in Hawaii with the mission of again, empowering youth voices and climate policy. And we hope that our attention to this topic will call the legislature accountable for the impactful legislation. So moving to the next slide, I will talk a little bit more about the structure of the event that we had. We had five different groups that tackle different policy areas where students were able to participate. I was leading one of them, so just in a minute I will target specifically one of these groups and then Audrey will also present the group that she was helping to lead. But generally speaking about the event that we were able to organize, we had the sustainable infrastructure and development policy group that students were able to join that is particularly focused on planning and developing sustainable communities with glimmer infrastructure. We also had the group on clean energy and transportation. This is actually the area that I am most interested in and that I was helping to lead. So I'll also get back to just in a minute to talk more about the results that we received out of this, the conversation and the discussion that we had in our group on clean energy and transportation. It was primarily based on increasing accessibility for cleaner energy and transportation for people here in Hawaii. Another group that we were having in our event is that climate and economy that mainly focused on correcting the work in failures of the unsustainable economy and working towards transitioning to the sustainable one. We also targeted the area of regenerative food systems which is incredibly important especially here in Hawaii being so highly dependent on the imports from other countries and the mainland. It mainly was focused on the reducing food waste and transitioning food systems towards more sustainable ones as like reliance on the more locally produced food. And the last one is the climate justice and just transition. While we acknowledge the fact that the transitioning, the sole transitioning to the more sustainable development is the core of what we want it's used to advocate for. It is also important to ensure that this transition to sustainability is equitable for everyone and we also want to work towards reducing the burden of marginalized communities and uplifting them so we are also able to share their voices and hear from their perspective. Yeah so now moving towards the group that I was more closely working with is the clean energy and transportation the one that you can see on the next slide. Talking a little bit more about the importance of it it really affects us on a daily basis if you think about it. We use the electricity, we use transportation every single day to commute to different places. We use electricity to do our homework on a daily basis. We all at our school we have iPads that we use every single day and we do need electricity in order to be able to charge them as well. And it is something that really affects us on a daily basis and it is one of the reasons why I decided to join those group particularly. With my group we focused on two different aspects of the first one is the clean energy and the second one is the transportation sector. So talking more specifically about what kind of policies used in Hawaii things are more important to prioritize under the clean energy and transportation sections. For the clean energy priorities would be the solar panels on the newly constructed homes also the Hawaii home energy assistance program that is highly promoted by the Blue Planet Foundation that was helping me with organizing and leading this workshop for the students during the climate future forum. Also students in my group found that the bill SB 1154 there was well that's it's numbering the previous legislative session but it is still it is still promoted in the new legislative session about the continuous emissions monitoring which is incredibly important for the research that is conducted in this area and also it's really important to realize what kind of emissions are actually being in the air and in order to be able to target them specifically in order to reduce them and increase the overall health conditions of people and going towards the transportation priorities it is the HPU 199 Bell about the zero emissions vehicle purchasing assistance which is also highly important. Also in my group students really were really passionate about the transportation system as as the whole the public transportation system that is really not as developed here in Hawaii especially comparing to some other like big cities on the mainland or some some countries who like European countries for example where we're talking about some specific examples like in Denmark or Norway when the transportation systems the public transportation systems are really highly developed and it is also something that your youth in Hawaii find really important and we also talked about the zero emissions school bus mandate as most of the people who are participating participating in the climate future forum or school students and it was really interesting to see how they found it really important um yeah so that was that was on my part I was really really wanted to be able to participate in climate future forum and specifically in this in this crew course and also be able to work with a blue planet foundation with the correct who is the director of the um education program there it was an incredible opportunity for me and I'm really happy to be able to share with you the priorities the youth in Hawaii find well most important Alisa let me pose a couple of questions to you I was in Hong Kong a few years ago and it is a jam packed city millions and millions of people and high rise after high rise and yet there's no big traffic jams things are moving along smoothly what is going on here you go into any convenience store with a little transportation card and you tell the clerk I want X dollars in transportation funding and he just goes zoop zoop and you got your card you hop onto a bus you point the card at a little machine goes and you're on the bus and then in Hong Kong there's ferries you get off the bus you go to the ferry you go beep and you're on the ferry ride and there's trains yet off the ferry to the train station and you're on the train again what if on the Lulu's or Hawaii's public transportation system were as efficient that is easy as that when your card is running low you get a boop boop sound you go to the next convenience store who I want X dollars more who you got it it's really really really simple and the buses are running all the time the ferries are running all the time and that's one big reason why you can sit millions of people into a small space and everybody's getting along getting around fine but what's your reaction to that yes it is exactly what we were talking about we were looking at some other models from other countries and how they are dealing with large populations and all the transportation systems and how they are incorporating this in order to achieve greater sustainability and I really agree with you that the more developed public transportation system could really affect the way people commute to different places and also can reduce significantly reduced the traffic during my research on this topic I was also interviewing some of just like random people that and I was just like hearing their stories and asking them how often they're using cars and what I learned is that they indeed use a lot cars really often because it is simply taking them to one to commute to different places with bus systems on buses they're not going to all the places on the island buses are also taking really long time to go to different places and service just not significant amount of that that are on the road currently also another aspect is that because it is not as common and there is a lot of the like sort of car culture that has been developed historically in the united states I feel like it would be a really it would be a really hard and maybe even long transition towards the war like public transportation system and just like usage of this sort of common common goods because people are so used to be living really far away from the cities and just like going there in order to for example shop or go to school or just like do any other activities and they're used to use cars for all of this and from interviewing different people I really learned that it is a really like big sort of custom that they have it's like a tradition that they have and I believe that it is a really great idea that you pointed out with development of war sort of connected transportation system however I do understand that it might be a really hard transition and it might take a really long time you know one of the benefits of traveling to other countries is to see how public transportation oriented they are and how easy and chief they make it compared to America and I might say Canada also you use the word car culture that's exactly what we have so here's a just we need to leave you pretty soon and get to Audrey but here's a simple proposition that I have heard for Honolulu what if we just made the bus free you can hop on the bus hop off the bus anytime you want what would happen then I believe it might be a good idea I can also see how there might be some controversies with us because there still has to go some funding towards how the bus will be operating and also people who will be like helping this bus to operate so I definitely see how there might be some sort of negative sides of it but I definitely can and see how this can also be a good idea because more people could potentially use it and especially what I mentioned at the very beginning the the sole idea the core idea of why I decided to join is because a lot of low-income communities are being affected by this specifically because people simply don't have that much money in order to afford cars that are more sustainable now also don't have enough money to just simply be able to commuting really easily from one places to other places and I believe that this this idea could definitely benefit why why is beyond your years Lisa now Audrey let's have the pleasure of hearing from you please introduce yourself a bit a little bit of your background why you joined the forum and what your specialty is going to be today sure um thank you so much hard for having me and thank you so much for Lisa for that wonderful presentation my name is Audrey Lynn I'm a junior at Eleni school I'm 17 years old and I'm a co-founder of the climate feature forum and I also help lead the citizens climate lobby Hawaii action team which focuses on the policy group I'll be talking about today which is titled climate and the economy and I am joined by Dr. Paul Bernstein from UH economic research organization and our legislative sponsor is representative Carl Rhodes and I was fortunate enough to have them both attend the recent December event and I'd love to share more about the policy priorities that arose from our discussions so if we could just share the slides so our policy group was titled climate and the economy and it's honestly just a wonderful reminder of how interdisciplinary the climate sector is and this policy group tries to kind of forge this bridge between economics and sustainability so one thing we tried to do for our participants was just to give them an introduction of basic economic principles and see how that tied to any climate related bills so the most widely supportive policy that our group discussed was called carbon cashback and we've discussed this on your show before Howard but as youth we truly believe it's our generation more than any other generation that will experience honestly the extraordinary cost and impacts of climate change and as we see the influx of you know natural disasters and extreme weather the most effective way to change our direction is to make the price of fossil fuels which contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and then contributes to global warming reflect the actual costs that they are causing which would be a huge incentive for the economy to then shift to renewable energy and a carbon cashback bill will do exactly this so the carbon cashback was in the last legislative session as SB 1004 and HB 1146 and those bills would basically tax fossil fuel corporations and then compensate consumers which would better enable Hawaii's transition to renewable energies and we also researched how you know studies have shown how carbon cashback result would result in a 10% reduction in carbon emissions in a revenue neutral manner and in addition our group discussed subsidies whether that's on solar panels electric vehicles or some sort of regenerative food agriculture system and that money would kind of be tiered based off of income and honestly in Hawaii we are so lucky to be blessed by just such an abundance of the land and we really see how are the indigenous populations truly treasured and protected the Aina and now we kind of see the effects of climate change that are really omnipresent in every sector of the population from you know increased sea levels to severe weather to impacts on our economy in our daily lives and these you know policy priorities are just one way we see that our action can kind of drive political power and we want real systemic change within our legislature to save our future and without the passage of the bills that I mentioned previously the situation will only worsen and to be frank we're not really pleased with how our state looks right now so we would like to see you know such change occur in the next legislative session so on the next slide we kind of talk about the next step of climate future forum after our December event and it's really wonderful to say that our work has not been unnoticed recently I was invited along with one of my peers Reina we were invited by Senator Gabbard and Representative Lowen to speak at the January 11th climate briefing at the state capital and the purpose of that was really to alert the people of the immediate sea and magnitude of the threat that climate change poses to Hawaii and also we want to note that the legislative session has just begun and we are so excited to continue tracking bills which we will hope to post on our website and sort of continue to testify for bills that matter to us so that we can really see our words and our productive dialogue change into momentum and inspire the rest of the nation and the rest of the world to follow suit so oh yeah sorry that I mean I'll just give your voice a a chance for a moment regarding climate change the headlines in the news day after day are about all the immediate problems that we're having a couple of wars very controversial election and so forth they are as we say in Hawaii Manini very small the 800 pound gorilla that not enough people are paying to paying attention to today is climate change and it is it's we're having beautiful weather in Hawaii as usual we're not seeing it except for the Maui fire but we will see it in our daily lives time after time look over the world get out flooding fires and so forth so you're absolutely right in focusing on that just just want to commend both of you for getting your priorities straight so so please proceed yeah no Howard you touched on a good point and you know at climate future forum we like to use this thing called a climate story which we like to share with legislators we like to share you know with community members and other you know climate related groups and of course young students but it's really a time to share or how climate change has impacted you firsthand and you mentioned the Maui fires and many of our you know students and participants mentioned you know devoting you know time after school to help volunteer for the Maui fires and for me personally I grew up in California and one of the most you know defining moments in my journey as a climate activist was the California wildfires which happened especially during the COVID pandemic and it was really really you know incredible to see how the effects of climate change can just affect me firsthand and with the Lahaina wildfires we see that amplified such as you know a local and granular level and another thing I know Lisa likes to talk about this but it is you know the butterfly effect it's really what we do on a state level what we do on a local level will you know kind of resonate hopefully with the at a national level or even in other states or even around the globe so we hope that what one movement what's one you know youth led movement in Hawaii can then have such a bigger impact on such a larger scale you know I participate in climate change related activities at the national level and well I always wear an aloha shirt due to these events so they can immediately spot me but they say to a man or a woman Hawaii is leading the way we look to Hawaii for leadership yeah definitely you know we we have one of the most ambitious renewable portfolio standards in the entire nation we want to be net zero by 2045 and you know it's amazing that we're making those commitments and now we want to see you know that follow-up which is you know those legislative changes those bills that legislation to begin to be passed so that we can you know adequately say that yes we've met those goals and we want the rest of the nation to follow and Lisa you mentioned the word power when you referred to legislative activities and I see it firsthand is part of my job where we think we are on the right track we just we have irrefutable evidence about climate change and we're promoting different actions and yet we get what we call pushback and that pushback is very very powerful it persuades legislators because those people giving the pushback really know the legislative process and they play the legislature like Yehudi Mendoven plays the violin so I'm really pleased that you two and your comrades are getting into the legislature the more time you spend there the better you understand the system and the better you know how to pull the levers of power that makes me very very pleased so we've only got less than three minutes to go so give us some wrap up wisdom here either Lisa or Audrey well I can mention one thing that I discussed in my policy group that I would love to share with your guests which was kind of going with what you just mentioned actually but it's the importance of cooperation I think we've mentioned in our talk that you know climate change is such an interdisciplinary intergenerational movement and there's so many different stakeholders that we need to work together to sort of garner the support of all these different parties through compromise and then also productive dialogue so then we can kind of reach across the aisle and see you know productive change occur um Lisa do you want to add anything to that I think you're muted you're muted Lisa I'm so sorry I was saying that I really believe in you Audrey and I also need to point out something that you forward mentioned about how important just the fact that we are trying it is because it is very important to realize like what you mentioned there is a really tight interconnection between different stakeholders and being a young person and willing to make this change it's all about just making sure that your voice is being heard and what we are trying to do is to encourage and give this opportunity to as many youth as possible to make to be able to do this and then just trying and trying and trying and just not giving up and not trying to and not paying attention to all the pushbacks the new Hobart mentioned is something that makes this effort and the section so unique therefore just like as a last word I wanted to encourage everyone in Hawaii in other states also internationally to never give up in terms of advocacy and just the effort of trying to make your voice heard because it's the the most important thing so thank you so much beautiful yeah so our time is up but I want to thank both of you and I think Mr. Bernstein has arranged for more of you beyond the program next week and the week after that so I'm really really looking forward to that and I highly highly commend both of you and you have a beautiful future and that does it for a cold green sink tech Hawaii see you next time