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Cumberland Lodge to Host National Youth Climate Talks

Windsor charity to host national youth climate talks ahead of UN global summit

  

Cumberland Lodge | YOUNG people from across the UK, including pupils from local secondary schools, are gearing up to take part in a youth climate conference this month, convened by Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park.

Held online to maximise participation, the conference aims to enable young people to express their climate ideas, visions and expectations and feed them directly into the international ‘Pre-COP26’ Youth4Climate summit in Milan this September, ahead of COP26, the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow in November.

Up to 100 participants are expected to take part in the Cumberland Lodge conference, Climate Futures: Youth Perspectives, with four interactive sessions between 9 and 17 March, exploring:

  1. Education for sustainability (9 March)
  2. Green business and careers (11 March)
  3. Climate adaptation and eco-anxiety (16 March)
  4. Democracy and grass-roots activism (18 March)

 Young people aged 17 to 25 – from a broad spectrum of schools, universities, organisations and backgrounds – will have the chance to collaborate with policymakers and civil servants, charity representatives and activists from the UK and abroad, community practitioners and academics.

  

Several local schools are represented, with sixth-formers attending from The Marist School in Sunninghill, Windsor Girls School, Eton College, Woking College and Salesian School in Chertsey, along with participants drawn from the Berkshire Eco-Schools Network.

Discussions will be highly interactive, with short presentations from guest speakers, quick polls, Q&A sessions, breakout groups and project-work sessions. The focus is on young people’s perspectives on environmentalism, stewardship of the natural world, grassroots activism, representative democracy, and opportunities for international collaboration.

Cumberland Lodge is part of the COP26 Youth and Civil Society Group organised by the Cabinet Office, and has been working with various organisations to attract young participants to the conference, including:

 Cllr Donna Stimson, RBWM’s Cabinet Member for climate change, sustainability, parks and countryside, and Trustee of Heal Rewilding, said, ‘I am looking forward to the Cumberland Lodge Climate Futures sessions enormously. I have been working with young people who have a passion for addressing the climate issues we face for several years now, through our Berkshire Schools Eco-Network, the with Heal Future volunteers and schools who support our charity Heal Rewilding. Their energy, ideas and obvious concern are vital to helping us through this environmental crisis.’

Cumberland Lodge Chief Executive, Dr Ed Newell, said, ‘Cumberland Lodge brings people together for candid conversations about pressing issues and with the global climate summit just months away this is an important opportunity to hear from young people about their hopes, ideas and priorities for a more sustainable future, for people and planet.

‘We look forward to providing this intergenerational platform to generate practical recommendations for positive action. We are particularly grateful to all the organisations and initiatives that are supporting this project, and to William Finnegan our freelance Research Associate.’

Founded in 1947, Cumberland Lodge specialises in facilitating ‘difficult conversations’ by convening leaders, influencers, students and young people for candid conversations on pressing issues of social cohesion in the UK and beyond. The charity has commissioned the award-winning documentary filmmaker, environmental educator and University of Oxford researcher, William Finnegan, to prepare an independent briefing document for the conference, and he will also be writing a summary report with key themes and recommendations, to be published this summer.

 

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