It is in the spirit of responding the climate which has developed into an international issue nowadays, Indonesia`s National Youth Committee (KNPI) was inspired to organize an International Youth Forum on Climate Change in February 2011.
Ahmad Doli Kurnia, KNPI General Chairman, in an interview with Antara here on Monday, said the issue on climate change had head spread to many parts of the world. Many countries had really been affected by climate change.
It is for that reason that Indonesia which is rich in rain forests should remain as the lungs of the earth by means of conserving the forests and rehabilitating degraded land in order not to be affected by the impact of climate change.
According to him, it is the hand of the youth who will have a higher life expectancy that the sustainability of forests in Indonesia has to be trusted to them. "The fate of this country will be in their hands in the future."
Therefore, KNPI should take the initiative to popularize issues on climate change to the youth in Indonesia and those living in other countries.
"One of the ways to popularize this is organizing an international youth forum on climate change," KNPI Secretary General Pahlevi Pangerang said adding: "It will be the first ever held in the world that a politically-affiliated organization like KNPI gives more attention on the climate change."
"It will be an honor for Indonesia to host this first-ever event," said Pahlevi.
KNPI was reported to have more hopes on the event in a sense that it will motivate Indonesia to keep on addressing climate change issues which have become a source of world concern.
Pahlevi said campaigning the event would promote and target youths in the 13-18 years age group who were expected to continue and maintain the environment in the future, or at least in the next 50 years.
Expected to be attended by youths from 120 countries in the world and a number of international figures such as UN (United Nations) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the event will at least contribute to finding a solution of conserving the forests and managing the forests in a good manner that may benefit the people as a whole.
According to him, the presence of the UN Environment program Executive Director Achim Steiner, UN Executive Secretary Framework Convention on Climate Change Christiana Figueres and Presidential Advisory Board Member for Environmental Affairs Emil Salim, are expected to give more inputs to Indonesia in reviving the spirit of the youths toward tackling climate change.
It is in the context of climate change, Al Gore during his visit to Indonesia said that so many way to popularize the ways to face climate change such as by holding a conference and more important by educating the youths to be presenters of climate change.
The world was vulnerable to climate change impacts and many things could be done as a solution to climate change.
Climate change had recently shown its impacts on agricultural and fisheries sectors that affected the economy.
Al Gore said that the climate project presenters were expected to help provide knowledge and information for the people so that they would play an active role in their respective communities in seeking solutions to climate change problems.
The Oscar winner through his film "Inconvenient Truth" made a presentation on climate change and climate-change related natural disasters.
There are about 350 presenters and they will be trained in how to reduce pollution and act in the transition period towards clean energy solutions.
The 350 training participants were chosen from 1,200 candidates in the region, Al Gore said.
In the meantime, Chief Executive Officer of Alliance for Climate Protection, Maggie L Fox, said the presenters would return to their respective communities and lead efforts of handling climate change.
Maggie said that throughout the world there were about 3,600 presenters from 56 countries, where 900 of them came from the Asia Pacific region and had been trained by Al Gore.
Sharing the same opinion with Al Gore, the KNPI General Chairman further stressed the intention of the international forum on climate change was exactly in line with the training handled by Al Gore.
"What we want to achieve is to arrive at one commitment among the youths in a sense that the forum can be a tool to motivate them to get engaged in popularizing the importance of conserving the forests and finding a solution to climate change," Ahmad said.
Hence, the participants of the forum will conduct observation visits to three research sites in Indonesia on February 21-26, 2011.
These locations are Tanjung Puting National Park in Central Kalimantan, Takabonerate Coral Island in South Sulawesi and Komodo Island in East Nusa Tenggara.
The first-ever international youth forum for tackling climate change was also supported by the World Assembly of Youths (WAY) and the ASEAN Youth Council, and KNPI, he said.
(T. E002/H-NG/P003)
Reporter: Elizwan
Editor: Priyambodo RH
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
