Young people urged to change world

Young people need to think and fight for a vision of a world that is safer, cleaner, healthier and fairer. That was the key message to emerge from the One Young World Summit which opened on a predictably positive note in Dublin this week.

Fri, 17 Oct, 2014 - 01:00

Kelly O'Brien

The event has attracted a veritable who’s who of international speakers with the most notable guests including Bob Geldof, former Irish president Mary Robinson, and former UN secretary general Kofi Annan.

The four-day conference, which ends Saturday, is worth an estimated €3m to the local economy and unites global leaders with the most influential youth from across the globe. Together, they discuss how to change the world.

The delegates were introduced during a seemingly endless flag procession. The representatives of Ukraine, Palestine, and Syria were greeted by rapturous applause — those from North and South Korea receiving even more support when they appeared holding hands.

Opening the event, Taoiseach Enda Kenny talked about Ireland’s recovery, job creation, and national finances.

“This recovery is the people’s recovery,” he said. “It’s their sacrifice, often cruel sacrifice, has given us this success.”

He also spoke about jobs, describing the Irish workforce as the world’s most adaptable, but said current figures of youth unemployment in Europe are “intolerable”.

“As leaders, we must not allow a generation to grow up believing that democracy itself has failed to give them a reasonable chance in life,” he said. “Because it is they who are democracy’s future.”

Mr Kenny asked attendees to think about global issues such as climate change and not to think of these challenges as “overwhelming” or “insurmountable”.

“We, today’s leaders, pledged to make every effort to do all we can to make the necessary change,” he said. “Because if we do not, then for our children and grandchildren, it won’t be a question of how they will live in a world of 9bn people, but rather one of whether they will be living at all.”

Ms Robinson also spoke about climate change, passionately urging young people to act on the issue while they still can.

She underlined the importance of sustainable development and said if the world remained on its current course, climate change would be “catastrophic”.

She said: “We need to think about how we can have a vision of a world that is safer, cleaner, healthier and fairer.”

"You're the young leaders, you must communicate the issues" - Mary Robinson #OYWElders #ClimateChange
— One Young World (@OneYoungWorld) October 16, 2014

"We don't have a Plan B, we only have one world" - Mary Robinson #OYWElders
— One Young World (@OneYoungWorld) October 16, 2014

"I loved Mary Robinson talking this morning about what we have to do to combat #climatechange" - Dylan Kaplan #OYW pic.twitter.com/cVtGgSeFjV
— One Young World (@OneYoungWorld) October 16, 2014

Bob Geldof changed tack, warning of an impending conflict such as another world war, talking about Ukraine, Islamic State militants, and the fragility of international peace.

“I don’t know about you, but there is something deep and scary going on,” he said