COP26: South Africa youth delegates leave for UN climate summit in Milan

By Nneka Nwogwugwu

Three young students from South Africa concerned about climate change and the environment are heading to Milan to participate in the Youth4Climate Driving Ambition event from September 28 to 30.

The trio will put forward ideas and concrete proposals on some of the most pressing issues on the climate agenda.

UCT students Koaile Monaheng and Sibusiso Mazomba, together with Wits student Sandisile Mkhonza, left for Milan ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference (Cop26) in Glasgow later this year.

Mazomba said South Africa was widely known as one the most unequal countries in the world and climate change threatened to exacerbate the socio-economic issues that it currently faced.

It was thus essential to look at climate change through an intersectional lens to foster climate resilience in communities and ensure that poor and marginalised groups did not become more marginalised by climate change.

Hailing from Lesotho, Monaheng said his Master’s focus was on climate governance and he looked forward to making meaningful contributions and connections during this event, especially since developed countries in the north often dominated the climate conversation – despite contributing the most towards global warming – while those in the south contributed the least but were most affected by this crisis.

Mkhonza said one of the key issues they would be discussing at the summit was the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions – especially for South Africa as it was heavily reliant on coal-climate adaptation and climate finance (where Mkhosa’s expertise lies), Capeargus reports.