Special Envoy for the Caribbean Youth Environment Network (CYEN) Mr. Stefan Knights met CARICOM Secretary-General, Ambassador Irwin LaRocque at COP 21 in Paris, France, Thursday.

CYEN, which is active in 18 territories across the Caribbean, is seeking closer engagement on environmental matters with relevant Caribbean Community institutions, including the Belize-based Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre.

It has been at the forefront of the “1.5 to Stay Alive” campaign through which the Region is seeking global commitment to holding temperature rise to below 1.5 of pre-industrilisation levels.

About CYRN:

The CYEN is a non-profit, civil society, charitable body that focuses its resources on empowering young people and their communities to develop programmes/actions to address socio-economic and environmental issues. The CYEN programme aims at addressing issues such as poverty alleviation and youth employment, health and HIV/AIDS, climatic changes and global warming, impact of natural disasters/hazards, improvement in potable water, conservation and waste management and other natural resource management issues.

Below are some of the things we have done:

1. Had delegates represent CYEN at the UNFCCC Conference of Parties in Denmark, Mexico, South Africa, Qatar, Peru and France. Also several of our members have participated in a plethora of regional and international conferences which focused on sustainable development. Most recently, we had a delegation at the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and SDGs Processes.

2. Established the Caribbean Youth Climate Change Mitigation Website which was endorsed by UNDP. Also, we have conducted several education awareness projects on climate change. Further, we have established the Santo Domingo Caribbean Youth Declaration on Climate Change and the 2015 Youth Caribbean Citizens Statement on Climate Change.

3. Conducted a Regional Consultation to Assess Regional Priorities, Capabilities and Research Gaps on Climate Change and Poverty Reduction in Latin America and the Caribbean.

4. Conducted an Integrated Water Resources Management project throughout the Caribbean.

5. Building an assemblage of research papers and articles on climate change in the Caribbean. These papers are written by highly qualified youth at the graduate and post graduate levels who specialize in the fields of climate change, law, economics, natural resources management and international relations.