It was almost 20 years ago that governments and civil society agreed that unchecked economic growth was utterly destroying the planet and urgent action needed to be taken. This was the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, when most of us were so young we would have had trouble pronouncing the words sustainable development.
Yet Severn Suzuki made waves in the media by standing up and giving an intervention as a young person – many of us have probably seen the 7-minute video! In June 2012, governments, civil society and business & industry lobbyists will meet again in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to make decisions on how to achieve a “green economy” and “sustainable development”, in a summit nicknamed Rio+20. In the lead up to this, a group of Europeans have been planning a conference for young campaigners to learn from experts, network amongst themselves and have some input into the political framework offered by governments.
Despite the massive corporate involvement for this ‘European Youth Meeting for Sustainable Development’, several activists from YFoEE will be participating there. So far we have 4 confirmed participants from Lithuania, France, Germany and Croatia.
YFoEE would love to know:
* if anyone else in the network is also going to join the EYM?
* if there are any requests from individuals or groups of the network?
We’d like to discuss what our goals are at the EYM, along with how and what we feed back to the rest of the network. More info including preliminary program can be found at www.eym2011.eu
Let us know by emailing sophie.manson@foeeurope.org