 Hello and welcome to today's event, Untold Stories, Climate Activism and the Brutal Realities of Loss and Damage. This online event is part of Climate with New York City and it will bring together activities from Solomon Islands from Rwanda and from Sierra Leone to publicly showcase for the first time a series of animations about their lived experiences of loss and damage caused by climate change. And I am now absolutely delighted to introduce Brianna Kraft, Senior Researcher in IID's Climate Change Research Group, who will be our moderator today. Amazing. Thanks so much, Georgina. Hello everyone. Welcome to this event. Thrilled to have you here and also excited for this opportunity, which is our first public event to share these three animations. As Georgina said, my name is Brianna Kraft. I am a Senior Researcher in IID's Climate Change Group. To tell you a bit about IID, the International Institute for Environment and Development is a policy and action research organization. We promote sustainable and equitable development to improve livelihoods and protect the environments on which these livelihoods are based. IID has offices in London and Edinburgh and the work my team does is to strengthen the voice and power of climate vulnerable people in international decision-making processes on climate change. So that's what we work on. And that is how I came to know our amazing panelists and activists who are going to be presenting their animations today. And I'm going to give Gabriel the chance to introduce himself. It's great to see you. Can you tell our lovely audience who you are, please? Good afternoon, everyone from Sierra Leone. Of course, I'm Gabriel Paca. Of course, a meteorologist by professions. And I work with the Sierra Leone Meteorological Agency in the Ministry of Environment. And I'm currently the Deputy Director General Head of Operations, of course, and also the UNCCC focal point for Sierra Leone. Of course, in charge of climate community issues. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you and welcome. We are some of our other panelists are just coming along and Gladys from Solomon Islands is not joining us live but has sent in some pre-recorded remarks because it is the middle of the night in the Solomon Islands. So we're going to let her take the opportunity to introduce herself via her pre-recorded remarks. Hello, everyone. My name is Gladys Habu. I am a climate advocate and a UNICEF Pacific supporter based here in the Solomon Islands. Today, it is indeed an amazing pleasure to join Inezah and Gabriel in showcasing the animations that we did with the amazing support of IIED. I am so pleased that I've had the wonderful opportunity to co-produce our animation alongside my friend and the current Campaign Director of the Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change, Mr. Solomon Yeo. It was indeed a very, very humbling experience to be able to communicate this very important message of loss and damage on behalf of our country, Solomon Islands. Great. Great to hear from Gladys and indeed she took the opportunity to introduce Solomon, who you will see in her animation as well. We have one more author who's going to join us in a little bit. Inezah and I'll let her introduce herself when she joins. So to say, before we dive into watching the animations, I'm just going to say a bit about what the project and the work we did together started with. So basically we, the four of us, well the five of us with Solomon, started more than a year ago a series of blogs and written pieces which built up into animations that brought to life the real lived impacts of the climate crisis in Rwanda, Solomon Islands and Sierra Leone. This began with blogs where the Gabriel, Gladys and Inezah were able to write and author their kind of own personal experiences of this. We're going to share those links if you want to read more about what those blogs built up to. We then took and worked for several months with an animation company to try and depict this. All of this was done basically because we've noticed a real gap in understanding internationally about what the climate crisis, how it's manifesting around the world and what challenges people are facing already because of climate change and we wanted to give voice to that in a way that people could delve into and experience. I got into climate change because it was something that I felt really strongly about. We needed to address and do something about and I, before we watch the animations, I also wanted to give our authors the opportunity to say what inspired their own climate activism, what got them into climate change in the first place and we're going to start with Gladys, who the marks again are reported and then we're going to watch the animation from the Solomon Islands. Over to Gladys to answer kind of what brought her to talking about climate change and sharing her story. So we're going to start with her. So I started doing climate advocacy from a very young age because of the environment with which we were brought up in. It is constantly changing over time because of the impacts of climate change and a lot of people out there say that climate change is a natural cause and it is but the rate at which these terrible consequences of climate change or loss and damage to the communities in countries like us in the Solomon Islands has been worsening pretty much within the last decade or two and a great example of that is sadly the loss of an island that was so close to us and our people, Calais. So Calais Island was about 48,000 square meters and it was home to my grandparents and their family and so you know although we did not have the experience of living on the island during my time growing up we did have that significant connection with the land because we would always go back each year you know to have little picnics or family gatherings. By 2014 Calais Island had completely submerged underwater taking with it you know the wide variety of biodiversity that it used to offer to our people but not only that our identity you know parts of our history and our culture and these are very deep and personal losses that cannot ever be replaced. Well I want to thank Gladys for sharing that and we're going to see this depicted in just a minute. Gladys worked with Solomon, a man from the Solomon Islands to produce the animation we're about to watch which brought what she was talking about specifically with Calais and other impacts to life. It's really powerful piece we're very pleased with how it turned out and to work with them as we really tried to illustrate some of these um terrible impacts for the first time. This is their first public viewing though they have been online and in social media and other spaces for about six months. We're very keen to hear from you if especially if you're viewing these for the first time what kind of feelings and impacts they trigger for you as you watch these videos what they could inspire how these could be shared if the impacts our authors are talking about were known to you just general reactions so please make use of the chat we'd really like to hear that and if there are specific questions they're raising we're going to have time for discussion at the end once we've viewed all three animations any issues you'd like to raise there or things you'd like our authors to speak more to. So with that we're going to go ahead and watch the Solomon Islands animation. We used to cope with storms we built coastal walls of stone planted mangroves and constructed houses and higher stilts but these efforts had their limits now cyclins hit the Solomon Islands every season powerful enough to cripple our economy overnight with rising sea levels our islands are sinking some completely submerged and with them fundamental parts of our history identity and culture trapped underwater gone forever climate change is often called the biggest injustice of our generation the least developed countries like ours have admitted the tiniest fraction of the planet warming gases that drive climate change yet we are five times more likely to lose our lives from climate related disasters salt from the approaching waves poisons our freshwater and forces people to travel great distances to find water for drinking and cooking our coral reefs home to thousands of marine species are dying and with them the protein that sustains us the losses we are experiencing from climate change are irreplaceable this damage is irreparable as our water and land disappears whole communities are forced to some forced to squat illegally exacerbating tensions between ethnic groups which makes us afraid we will revisit the violent conflicts of the past that labeled our country a failing state we are worried about our country's future recognizing our deep and personal losses governments must prioritize the climate crisis and agree a clear plan to address loss and damage that provides desperately needed support through finance and technology we must avert conflict and safeguard humanity we cannot let climate change cause more states to fail we must act now so powerful every time i watch it um i really really appreciate gladus and solomon bringing voice to what they're seeing in the solomon islands um sorry they can't be with us live here right now um but we did take the opportunity again to ask gladus just as a follow-up what impact she hopes uh will come from the animation what she wants people to kind of feel or do once they see her story um and she was kind of have to share some pre-recorded remarks on that um which i'd love to play to give her give her the chance to speak virtually even if she's not here with us the um animations that we have done i believe really brings out the reality that our people are facing on the ground on the daily basis you know not just talking about the impacts of of climate change or loss and damage but also the challenges that we um have to go through in order to try to adapt to these different changes and at the same time it speaks volumes of the support that we are hoping for not just locally but regionally as and and um most importantly internationally at the end of the day climate change is um you know the responsibility of all of us so true climate change is the responsibility of all of us um and in the animation as well um gladus mentioned is kind of the the bigger scale decisions that are happening uh with the international level this year obviously this event is taking place during New York climate week where some of those discussions are being had but it really does come down to all of us and the actions we take um really wonderful to hear from her uh and see the Solomon Islands animation do keep um reactions coming uh it'd be really great to hear uh views on kind of responses to the animation and any questions um that they're bringing up for you uh we're going to move on to uh Sierra Leone uh with Gabriel um and kind of look at your story so before we watch your animation I'm going to ask you the same question about what got you into climate change in the first place what inspired you to tell the story we're about to see um thank you very much of course um what inspired me happens to be one is um knowing the issues of climate change of course both as international level and also um for us of course implementing most of these actions because I work for the Israeli meteorological agency and also as a UN triple C4 point of climate change and of course we know before stance informations of of course the impact of climate change and then actions how parties are trying to address them so um basically of course for Sierra Leone we've observed that um um the national circumstances have changed I remember I joined the agency decades plus ago we are in we used to um of course the ring rainy season was um very okay and there had been by then less disaster was time in time out the return period of disaster of course has been reduced it used to be every three five years if forever there is um of course an occurrence of flooding or even strong wind but we observe that from the data that now it's like um of course every year and I observe that of course populace expiry LDC countries and between Sierra Leone of course people are doing um of course activities that is affecting the environment so I see the call for also that at least for me to try to share a first time information but we don't understand what we are faced with as a country remember 2017 we had one of the worst disaster that's most like that led to of course loss of lives and property and when that happens it was very more difficult for people to try to recover from their losses and so I'm pretty sure that with my nation it just tried to call on parties especially under the convention they develop countries to provide the integrated financial support at least to address most of this loss because of climate change and also for countries who implement some adaptation and mitigation strategies in order for us to have a resilient of course environment thank you and yeah Lattice also touched on um kind of this the climate injustice of those who have omitted the least are really seeing tangible devastating impacts right now that's been observed in your lifetime as you mentioned in Sierra Leone you mentioned the least developed countries and just so everyone knows the least developed countries are the 46 countries that have been categorized as least developed in the UN they negotiate climate change together at the UN climate change negotiations UNFCCC that Gabriel is the national focal point for for Sierra Leone the countries are 34 of them are in Africa then but they also span across Asia and the Pacific Solomon Islands and Haiti and the Caribbean as well and yeah that inequality are in justice of the least having omitted the least and seeing really really awful detrimental loss and damage from climate from a climate crisis but not cause is something I think all of the pieces touch on and you did as well your animation is also particularly powerful and I'm happy to play it now for everyone my country is beautiful with breathtaking mountain ranges deep valleys and low-lying coaster areas but over the last 15 years I have witnessed the escalating trails of destructions left in the wake of floods rising sea landslides and more we have always experienced moderate temperatures every rainfall and high humidity and we used to have two equally marked season dry and rain when I was young the rainy season kept us cold enough to play football and the rains nourished agricultural production we are in the genius crops right but as climate change has intensified more frequent and prolonged dry spells have threatened our food security due to rising sea levels flooding now occurs yearly and is far more severe floods contaminate our drinking waters spreading sicknesses and diseases people live in a disaster prone areas constantly worried about their homes being destroyed most lives are damaged buildings and infrastructures are now common in 2017 nearly 1,000 people were killed and over 3,000 were displaced in our overcrowded capital free town least developed countries face the largest damages from climate change proportionate to the size of our economies and face financial losses of hundreds of billions each year the impact of climate injustice severely affect people's lives we urgently need nations across the world particularly the richest nations whose heavy emissions have caused this damage to take leadership and provide dedicated financial support to address the far recent caused by climate change amazing seeing that playback gave reals that bringing that back message back home to you and like I I really appreciate in yours making connections that we often overlook between the climate crisis the impacts on human health and other kind of changes in agricultural production things that people don't tend to think about we think about big disasters we think about sea level rise but there are so many impacts from climate change you articulate very clearly some calls to the international process at the end for finance and technology and to account for loss of damage in the UN negotiations is there anything else or anything you want to add about what you hope the impacts of the animation will be for people yeah one impact is basically that this particular of course animation would try to change the mindset of people especially people that deal with climate change related issues and those that have caused the nine that climate change of course it's not a reality so I'm pretty sure with this particular nation people know that indeed climate change is real and they do need to take of course concerted effort for us to address of course most of the situations and also directly I I'm pretty sure that with this particular animation leaders and also even negotiators because I'm also a negotiator that negotiate on climate related issues for us to get some concrete actions that this would try to change of course the mindset of negotiators instead of us like us pushing for our positions but for us to see the reality that indeed climate change is happening and for us to have actions that we can take in order for us to have to make am of course the planet at a safer heaven and and of course the impact has to do with one people living in the communities and also disaster prone areas can try to see how they can try to leave those areas and also for us to be using the environment in a climate smart manner in order like us implementing adaptation and mitigation actions and also for countries to be using of course integrating their budget system with climate change actions where we look forward to international body for portion of support to address of climate change impact and strategies. Great and so I really resonate with coming from the United States and not often working especially with leaders who like to admit that climate change is real let alone discuss the impacts and the permanent impacts that are already taking place around the world I saw in the chat there is someone who remarks that for those of us from high emitting countries who face this kind of environment it's really on us to share and push our representatives and to share these stories and to share that we want our representatives to in fact take climate change and loss of damage into account when making decisions that this is critical for us but also all of us I'm glad I said to have roles play climate change and as you were saying with kind of people living in disaster prone areas and other things back home there are things that can be done but really you're facing the injustice of dealing with the crisis that you didn't cause from emissions from Sierra Leone so thank you for sharing very powerful we're going to come back to a broader discussion and look at some of the other comments people are making too and I see with us that we have with us the last of our speakers Inezah why don't we start then by playing her animation which well in a way give her the chance to introduce herself and at least we can see that and then move to hear from her herself hopefully so Inezah is from Rwanda and did a very powerful animation in the same style about the loss of damage being caused there and the impact she has seen over her lifetime in Rwanda so we'll go ahead and play her animation and hopefully she can speak to it afterwards I was born and raised in Rwanda during my lifetime our temperature has increased far more than the global average these were not driven by us people in the least developed country like mine emit 35 times less carbon than those in high-income countries Rwandans rely heavily on the land and we are used to coping with the long rainy season and the challenge of our mountainous landscape but climate change is making things worse and we are being pushed beyond our ability to adapt rain a road saw and kill livestock land depletion affects the whole community the spacing thousand my family had a small and cozy home but like so many others had to leave with just their clothes and bags forced to move to a communal house the last period of intense rainfall lasted for five months it destroyed roads and her centers leading to over 130 dead these damages are profound these losses are irrepressible climate change disproportionately affects rural girls and women daily tasks such as collecting water and cooking wood are made increasingly difficult by droves and floats that wash away agriculture income leaving them with nothing youth lead climate action can bring these stories of loss and damage that go unseen and unheard to the fore we have the power and the knowledge to develop solution but we need the right financial support our call is for developed countries of the world to listen and to act i'm aza perfect animation hello would you like to introduce yourself to everyone absolutely um i'll start by saying um apologize for being a little bit late so my name is inesa uh was a grace i am an eco feminist impact driven actor based in guanda and i'm happy to be here thank you so much great to have you um and of course i've already seen your animation but i really uh wanted to ask what got you into climate change what moved you to tell this story um your story of climate impacts that you've seen what brought you here today thank you so much can i please confirm that you can still hear me okay so first i will say i will start by i say like um the fact that i was given the opportunity to share my story and my voice on how i experienced climate change impact at a younger age until now remain the ultimate god opportunity because it's uh it's kind of give me uh like an opportunity to uh to be a voice especially for the frontline community so that the first of all they know that they are not alone uh because we are we uh the frontline valuable community we do share most of the challenges in climate crisis so it's good to know that we are not alone and also to give me an opportunity to paint the picture of how does does it look in reality when we talk about climate crisis and how do we uh using real data using uh personal lived experience to show like the climate crisis is something that's happening today it's not something that will happen in the future so we are not waiting for it to happen so we are really right in the middle of it so anything that needs to to take action to address it must be done right now so uh being a global youth uh a female raised in a peri-alban area it's definitely given me an opportunity to have a different perspective of the need of the community and the gap that exists in time of having uh uh engaging action on the ground and for the community i am part of i'm also part of the degeneration who has hope and we definitely do not want to only bring the business as usual in the international system or of climate because we want also to be stakeholders active stakeholders to co-create the path toward a stable and suitable future for the next generation and our generation so i can a combination of uh of those push me to share my story and the fact that i was have i was given opportunity to share using um english which was like it is it is my third language i am not a frequent speaker in english it also gave me also an opportunity to also build up my skill now i can speak in english and i think uh i think i think by that fact also we can have also um reach broader audience and express like the most important thing that is the fact that um we are more than done with empty promises and tokenistic action we just want more engaging action for our community amazing um and yes i have so many things to add to that or say to that but first um really applaud like i like that your animation points out the difference how how climate impacts our experience differently by men and women that's something as well that is often overlooked and giving life to that from your own experience is really impactful um and helpful to see and that you have the animation ends with kind of these youth led activities which um you have really taken and run with your organization the green fighter does such great work in rwanda and international as well um and i'd be happy to hear more about that but yeah just a really inspiring take on what needs to be done um i find from watching that and working with you uh it has been oh and you touched on the other points of the language so these animations were produced in english but they were also produced in local languages for all three of them i would love to hear as we move into kind of more the more discussion now that we've seen all three animations we have you both here with us um and we have some questions coming in from the audience which welcome more questions and we'll dive into that one of my questions was how the animations in the local languages have been received at home over the past six months um have you seen any impact from them what conversations have you had um for people viewing them back home would love to love to hear about that so i don't know if gabriel you want to start um if you had anything to share about that and then anesa and then we can move on to some of the questions from our audience oh gabriel you want to start sorry can you repeat again please i was just asking about um the animations in the local languages and the impacts you had seen or have you had heard anything reactions from people at home from seeing the animation that was not done in english um where has it been shown i believe it's been shown on television in sierra leone have you heard any kind of reactions or responses to that yeah um thank you very much of course on that note i want to say thanks to ied of course for the supports provided um yes the animation was um of course aired via um televisions of course um also radio stations and they were passed through also whatsapp of course through whatsapp groups of who to see what is happening and i would tell you like uh i remember 10 years ago i'll say when we are trying as a country developing our national communication first national communication also our napa that is the national adoption program of actions that try to detail the national circumstance of climate change and then the actions i can take really climate change was very new to people even to stakeholders it was very more difficult for us to of course to make them to understand but quite recently when we are trying to validate our national climate change policy and also when we are doing some roving seminars on climate change around the region people we are speaking of climate change and i was surprised you know and most of them were making mention of the of course the animations people we are even using the nation without even my consent so we said that of course people have understood that yes climate change is happening because i think we try to dive into our local language and i think now people are even taking their own personal actions at least in order for them to see how they can adapt to the change i will tell you yes um it has made huge progress and we are planning to make sure that we continue sharing this particular animation great thanks i love when people show something without telling you and you can hear back from someone else they've seen this and you didn't even know so that's great that people just took it and ran with it nice um and any reactions or responses in rwanda yeah um i can share some of those uh so first of all uh the animation was the first to be uh climate related that is in the local language so uh basically it was like the first thing that could speak to the rural community especially those who who use our local language on a daily basis so the fact that it was a present and it resonated in the language that they can align with easily it's kind of bringing like a more how can i say like a more perspective of what we need to be doing especially as youth so um one of the comment is like we had uh i mean i was contacted by a local journalist and then they were asking me do you have any other animation because students especially in the rural community were kind of using to see it because uh we don't have enough katron in kinyawanda so like that was like something even if it's two minutes they were like you were liking to see it so they were asking uh do you have any other content uh are you willing to do other animation and then uh that that kind of opened our eyes so uh now uh we get we are currently designing a curriculum that's going to use the both animation uh to speak to the youth but at the same time because we also find that like even grown up people uh really like katoons because just two minutes and then you have like uh you have the whole story like uh what's happening on the ground what you need to do and what kind of a message you have so it's kind of uh a quick way to say what you want to say and then reach people and then because it's just small time people can reshare it easily so uh that also that also helped and now uh now we are kind of like going crazy about it so we are now trying to create more because uh we believe like uh in the in the path to achieve a climate justice we need to ensure that uh the access of information and the voice of community are much more reflected and we found out that katoons or animation if we are one of the best way and then the other thing is not is like we also uh get opportunity to reach much more bigger audience because our uh I mean the animation that was a story from guanda was able to reach around the world that would that was something that was not uh quite we didn't I didn't expect it but it's been nice when you hear uh like of someone from Germany saying like now I know what kind of uh availability of the random community and I know what we need to be doing so I think it's also like um empowered the fact that the animation was mainly purpose to give like a view of what's happening and try to bring all people and different actors together so we can actively engage so I think that was also something that was pretty uh pretty well covered by the animation and I look on how to keep engaging with them because uh it's kind of it's a it's a good tool to be using especially now that everyone especially young people are on digital platforms yeah it's great I'm glad it's gotten so much uptake um that people really like it and that the want to tell a story very quickly is a universal thing people seem to really appreciate that um we have a couple of questions that have come come through so I want to give uh Gabriel and Anesa a chance to respond to those um the first one is about um how does the elder generations or older generations articulate the reasons for rising sea level or more severe floods so maybe looking at that you know this maybe animations are a style for young people but is this also how um older generations articulate reasons for climate change we became here Gabriel and Anesa your views on that um and then we have another question about how do we ensure that money and resources are directed from developed countries to developing countries unconditionally so that people um in the places that need it most can develop their own solutions um and I know that this links specifically to the international process Gabriel and I were talking about the UN climate negotiations and other um discussions that are happening this year so if you had any thoughts on unconditional support or locally developed kind of solutions for loss and damage how do we ensure that that money or resources reaches the people who need it most so would welcome your thoughts on both of those questions you know Gabriel you want to start okay no problem um let me start with the first one that has to do with um how do the elder generation articulate the reasons of course for sea level rise and more flooding I think um there are more positions to to give the of course the realistic situations of the changes because if they can remember maybe when they were young what was what was the situation then and then what is happening currently they can tell you that indeed something has changed so yes the elderly can of course articulate very well how things have changed I remember um I come from an island my mother's island of around month we are in there was please um maybe 15 years ago by then that place was of course covered by water and then bushes but currently when go to these places now you're seeing that like people have already erected houses there so of course I had to find it very difficult to tender that yes it is due to of course to the activities and enough of climate change so of course yes the elderly people they can be in more positions to do that and that's the more reason even in Sierra Leone we're doing our climate change policy we involve the elderly people and also traditional leaders at least for them to help us in in preaching out most of this information because the voice of the elderly is normally is being heard and then they can take it to consideration another one that has to do it of course um how can we ensure that the money resource directed by which countries will be used unconditionally yes first let's say international level under the unit climate changed the money will now come directly to any nations to be utilized first it has to go through any funding agency established by the UN organ either the GCF or the Jeff and then thereafter of course countries will submit their project proposals project that they think at least they can implement that has strategies for us to adapt or mitigate and then when those projects of course is being assessed of course verified and then approved normally it goes through accredited entities like the UNDP the World Bank and so and then thereafter there is a project document that will follow I will tell you it's been working very well for Sierra Leone I think we've had more than five projects that have been working very well most of them of course UNDP and others implementing that when it comes to direct sourcing maybe one you want to you want to assist a particular institution directly in fact for most countries like Sierra Leone now we have our of course a national climate change policy and also even with the MDC we know it's an ambitious process we have a blueprint and then there are strategies and most of our strategies have been costed so one is like you have the fund basket we are in you can implement through a particular entity and then there's a project document there's a project outline that we can follow so I think calling an international board to provide financial support is not new God is something they've accepted during of course the Paris agreement that's 100 billion to be provided annually for most of the support and I think the one I'm seeing now is like sharing the mission local language is right I think that has been done through our local radio stations and then through of course what's up the good thing about animation is that it's not going to get cold it's whenever you look at an animation it's like it's a fresh something so which means we're going to get at least preaching this one and even I remember just quite presently there was a fire outbreak and also a flooding then how the colleague telling me can you try to to write something on this and then to bring out animation because like year in year out when it's a flooding I normally present a much logical perspective so unlike like people are bordering me whenever there is climate related issues like Columbia so yes I'm I think it's quite okay from there I think someone is writing here that I'm how far too long higher emitter seems to shy away from the concept of loss of pandemic do we hope to have this on the plate yes well according to the position we can see they got their shine everybody have their own maybe their own positions as far as loss of pandemic is concerned because developed countries think that loss of damage to be addressed on the adaptation projects you know why we of course the LDC countries disease and others are calling that it has to be a separate organ so that please there can be a dedicated financial support that when I say loss because of the impact of climate change and because developed countries are the higher emitters they should have it dedicated financial support only for loss of damage because we cannot integrate loss of damage thing with that of adaptation issues never mind adaptations can serve as what to reduce the losses of course as far as damage is concerned thank you. Thanks very much and I'm interested in Ines's take on the last question too because I know that you follow loss and damage in the UN climate negotiations and Gabriel I had to laugh when you said the animation never gets old because I thought you meant that in the animation you would never get old so you wouldn't look old but that's not what you meant but yes unfortunately these animations will have a long shelf life because climate change and loss and damage is with us now for a while but Ines over to you on any of the questions but I'm particularly interested in the last question which is so far high emitters seem to shy away from the concept of loss and damage how do you hope to have this on the plate at the upcoming pop what do you hope we don't have in the loss of damage negotiations thank you so much that's a very good question and the one I will be happy to respond like very happy so first like it is true that loss and damage is considered as a toxic or like that kind of a folder that you want to open in the negotiation system but when you look closely when we talk about achieving a climate just word there's no way you can achieve a climate just word if you're not really taking active engagement on loss and damage so I am part of the loss and damage use coalition and as the name can suggest we are a coalition of the youth from the global north and the global south who are putting ourselves together to demand and take action to address loss and damage and one of the way we do it is pressuring global leaders because we are we are part of that generation where we know we don't only want to blame the past mistake because for instance vulnerable countries were advocating for the inclusion of loss and damage over the past 20 years ago but until today there's no such a thing as the proper mechanism of on how this issue should be addressed in the UNFCC process or on international level that does simply that simply make the loss and damage the biggest climate injustice that is existing especially for our generation and recent recent events showed that the climate change impact have no borders because in the past there were much more concentrated in the global south but now everyone whenever you are whenever you are located whether you live in a fancy house or not you are vulnerable because we all share one planet and the only way we are to we are to protect ourselves for the future is if we act together so that that kind of bring that become bring bring the need to really put the loss and damage on the fair form in the negotiation process because adaptation has has it's a it's a how can I say like it's focus and mitigation but considering that loss and damage is what happened when adaptation and mitigation are not present and because the climate in action from the global leaders is coming from way back so that means like the current situation that we are living right now is is urgent it's we need to take action and one of one of the way we are doing it in the in the loss and damage coalition is that we are putting together statement and demands that cover the the voice of of everyone so what at COP26 if I can share like what we are looking forward to first is active participation we want the COP26 to have to set up an adversary youth committee on loss and damage because we are the one who are going to live with the burden of all the political jargon that is broken and then and the impact is what we are living right now so we want to have an active center role in designing a solution and we also want to really see loss and damage becoming a priority or an agenda item for COP26 and beyond and also we are looking on way to to have an active operationalization of the Santiago network of loss and damage because this network is coming in a timely manner because in the global system we are lacking trust and the trust can be brewed if we allow the Santiago network of loss and damage to be fully operationalized by fully operational I mean it's able to have the access to formation capacity breathing and also the active action on the ground so that the community can be able to protect themselves so that would be that would be that would be like one of the things that we'll be looking for at COP26 so if COP26 is ending we'll be having a kind of a checklist and then we'll be like ooh COP26 fed on the on us and the youth because I think now more than ever we we just need to act and because we are past the point of no return and if the only way to really do it is if we consider to act together and then avoid the business as usual especially in the climate international climate system exactly and very clear demands from the process as well and that was really well articulated thanks Vanessa and I look forward to keeping leaders account once we go to Glasgow for COP26 in a month so yes the time is very short and we look forward to the discussions that will take place there I see our time is very short as we are coming to the end of our event I would like to give Ines and Gabriel the space to make some closing remarks but I also know that Gladys sent in some closing remarks pre-recorded those for us too so we can hear from her one last time so happy to hear from Gladys first and then Ines and Gabriel if you would like to say anything as we wrap up you'll have the opportunity so let's first hear from Gladys. For me you know the main message that I'd like to to share here is that you know our people can only do so much we we are a small country in the middle of the Pacific Ocean we have not many industries that are contributing to the rising greenhouse gas effects in our atmosphere and so the the way in which we lead this fight is through creating new and innovative ways to adapt to the climate crisis but adapting to climate change or the loss and damage that we face will not take away the problem the problem here is that climate change will continue to affect our people whether we like it or not and because of that we really need our global partners to push for more effective change especially by putting pressure on those who are heavily responsible for emitting for example greenhouse gases to ensure that the degree with which they act to fight this climate crisis must match or at least be somewhat closer to the level of damage that they are causing we need people to fight with us and fight for all of us and our planet as a whole because it is our home and if if we are all just sitting down and accepting what comes our way today then then we're being selfish to our children their future and the generations that are to come that was really powerful I think that was great I couldn't agree more strongly thanks Gladys for leaving us with that Gabriel and Eza in the last minute do you have anything else that you would like to share and as we wrap up Gabriel you first yeah so as a wrap up basically we know that the the nucleus of climate change action is the NDC of course that captures national circumstances and strategies that we can implement and within of course it has all activities for loss and damage for adaptation mitigation I also miss some implementation so in my closing I just want to call on parties countries of course for them to have an ambitious NDC especially their high emitters to cut down their emission level because we all know even if we take actions now the CO2 and the other carbon content to be in the atmosphere until they are half life before they will disappear so thus innovation also is very critical to see how can we try to be also taking most of the atmosphere why countries try to implement and having an enhanced NDC thank you thank you and very true and Eza last words to you thank you so much for the last one I just want to talk to policymakers stakeholders actor activist student especially the one from country that tend to block the achievement for climate justice using strategic political blocking system that tend to marginalize the voice and exposure of vulnerable community I want them to be reminded that their climate in action is costing lives and washing away force and the climate crisis no no borders the only way to address it is to work together and avoid the business as usual and truly honor the statement leave no one behind amen thank you um thank you to Enaiza Gabriel and Gladys thank you for the power to speak up your stories and to share your words with us it's been amazing working to bring these animations to life over the past year and thank you to the participants for being with us and sharing this and your thoughts and I see several comments come through about with thanks to the panelists for sharing your powerful stories so with that I will wrap up wishing you all health and safety as we move forward and climate activism together thank you