Cape Town - Local environmental youth activist Hannah Hopper, together with Farai Mubaiwa from Johannesburg and Oshea Roopnarian from Durban, were selected to represent the South African delegation at the G20 Youth 20 (Y20) Summit for 2021.
Youth representatives from the 19 participating countries aim to develop policy recommendations at the G20 Youth 20 Summit that will be formally submitted to G20 Leaders’ Summit in October. The delegates were tasked with proposing three policies for their specific track.
Hopper was tasked with representing the country’s Sustainability, Climate Change and Environment track, Farai Mubaiwa to represent the Inclusion track and Oshea Roopnarian to represent the Digitalisation, Innovation and Future track.
With South Africa being the only African country represented at the youth summit, the chosen delegates agreed to ensure the voices of the continent's youth were heard at the summit.
“In order to gather as many African youth voices and opinions as possible we created a survey that asked a variety of questions about various topics to feedback from the youth of not just South Africa but the whole of Africa.These responses and other research informed the policies we put forward for the summit,” said Hopper.
Hopper completed an internship with African Earth Rights in Cape Town last year and is currently studying towards a post-graduate diploma in sustainable development through the Sustainability Institute in Stellenbosch (SU) while working with the Scarborough Environmental Group where she manages two environmental clubs every week for a variety of students from different backgrounds and ages.
Hopper's first policy proposal focused on increased efforts to address climate inequalities and injustices through policy changes that support a sustainable development transition in the Global South.
“Much of the environmental degradation in Africa occurred as a result of colonisation, which was something that I wanted to address with this policy, as well as the fact that Africa contributes the least to climate change but is the most affected by it.”
The environmental activist’s second policy calls for sustainability to become a mandatory subject in primary education by 2025 in order to educate and prepare youth for the realities of the current geological age.
“The subject will need to cover a range of topics including climate science, indigenous knowledge, green technology and environmental justice,” said Hopper.
Hopper said the last policy proposal addressed the link between the wellbeing and survival of people to environmental health.
The G20 Youth Summit 2021 was set to be hosted in Milan, Italy, this July but was recently announced to be a strictly virtual event this year.