The Loss and Damage Youth Coalition is keeping rich countries accountable

The establishment of the loss and damage fund at COP 27 was a ground-rumbling moment in the worldwide climate movement. For the first time, rich countries had committed to more than listening to and discussing the plight of the Global South — they actually agreed to the creation of a fund from their own resources to balance the ledger for developing nations that were unjustly bearing the hardest brunt of climate change.

The part of the story you may not have read about was the tremendous impact the Loss and Damage Youth Coalition (LDYC) had on that decision. Co-founded in 2020 by Global Citizen Award-winning Eco-Feminist Ineza Umuhoza Grace and environmentalist Eva Mukayiranga, LYDC is made up of youths from both the Global North and South who have united to demand action on addressing loss and damage. Its members are working tirelessly across the globe to make sure world leaders deliver on the promises made for the fund’s establishment.

I was extremely fortunate to be given an in-depth look into the LDYC’s operations and how the granular work of thousands of youths can amount to decisions that will steer the course of our planet’s future. I spoke on Zoom with Advocacy Working Group Coordinator Mamadou Sylla about both his own story of enlisting in LYDC’s mission along with the on-the-ground details of how the coalition made the fund establishment possible.

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What led you on this personal journey into climate activism and eventually joining the LDYC?

I have been involved with LDYC for three to four years now, but I have been involved in climate activism since 2017. When I started my journey back then, I was very much into gathering people, creating and supporting small associations, working on humanitarian issues, and trying to solve the problems that my community is facing — problems such as poverty, environmental degradation, and problems in accessing basic facilities. I remember a close friend of mine invited me to support the foundation of a university group of nature friends that’s what it was called and from there on I was able to build relations with national wide organisations and later international organisations including LDYC. 

Everything went very fast, going from a local university group to working on larger national projects and getting into contact with more international youth not just from Africa but also from other continents. I was part of YOUNGO, [the official children and youth constituency of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).  Every youth organization is we can say part of YOUNGO, and it's through connections I know from YOUNGO that I received the information that came up to me about setting up a coalition that is especially focused on loss and damage, to advance the issue that was then almost like a taboo in the negotiations. 

Coalition building depends on finding the common need between people in different places who have different interests. What were the common needs that you found between youths in areas like the Global North and the Global South?

I think as a coalition, there are more things that ties us together than the differences. And I think the idea was that there is something that people have been fighting for a long time, and although it's a fight that is led by Global South countries mainly, it's a fight that is common to the world at any point of time. Whether you are a developed nation or a developing nation, you will have to face the consequences of climate change. Because we're already so deep into the crisis, there are some consequences that countries cannot avoid anymore.

Mamadou Sylla.

Of course, we have different coping mechanisms. There are some countries that have the means to cope with climate change and countries that unfortunately do not really have the science, technologies, and financial means necessary enough to cope with these consequences. But something that is common and really clear is that climate change hits every country. It's not whether you are rich or whether you are poor or whether you are in the north or in the south.  And given the fact that it's a global crisis, what's better than getting together in solidarity trying to fight this issue together? That, for me, is the main thing that links us: building a worldwide solidarity to exchange, stay together, and find solutions together.

But of course, there are many other things that young people all think, whether you are from Africa, Europe, or from America. There is a way of handling global politics that we really do not agree with as young people. There is a frustration with the fact that decision making is not really being taken at the right time. The goals of the coalition are of course to raise funds, campaigning, and training, but also to advocate for meaningful decisions on climate action when we think the decisions are not being made.

Regarding the landmark decision on the loss and damage fund you helped secure at COP 27, how did you communicate these issues with leaders from Global North countries without making them go on the defensive? And what was the moment that you knew that the dam was finally going to break?

We didn't really know at COP 27 that we'd have this achievement. But there was a lot of prior work done before COP 27 such that we knew that sooner or later – whether it's COP 27 or COP 28 – we will have this achievement.

At COP 26, for example, that was a moment for the loss and damage fund, because there was a lot of devotion and a lot of energy that young people had created around the issue. At COP 27, I think we had no choice but to see that there is something really obvious here and that we should act on it.

The decision at COP 27 was the consequence of many things that we had done before at COP  26, such getting people to know what loss and damage is, training people on loss and damage, mobilizing all youth movements, whether they're working on loss and damage itself, on climate change or any other thing, getting them to know what loss and damage is and that they have to support us to get this breakthrough agreement.

At COP 26, there was a lot of pressure that was applied, and not only by youth movements, but also policymakers, and Global South countries. Unfortunately, at COP 26, it really didn't result in an agreement – we ended up having the Glasgow Dialogue that says, ‘okay, we heard you. That's quite interesting, and we're going to talk about it.’ That's how I summarize the dialogue.

And we talked about it prior to COP 27, at SBs, in Bonn, and in other global gatherings. And at COP 27, although it came at the very last minute, we always had the impression that something was really going to happen insofar as the pressure from COP 26 continued into COP 27.

I was at COP 27 and there was no other issue that people were talking about besides loss and damage. There were a lot of protests, activities, and internal lobbying as well as coalition building to get this breakthrough agreement.

What we did was basically work with the COP 27 president one or two times before the conference. We sent open letters here and there and sent recommendations to some other countries telling them that this is what we are expecting to happen at COP 27. And one of those main recommendations was to have a loss and damage fund established so that vulnerable countries can have a lifeline in the aftermath of climate change. It happened at COP 27, and we are really, really happy that it happened.

Let’s take your home country of Senegal as an example of the impact loss and damage can have. In your view, if the proper action is not taken by the countries that have committed to the loss and damage fund, what do you think Senegal’s situation might look like five to ten years from now?

I really cannot imagine, and I really don't want to imagine that scenario. It's quite complicated because Senegal is facing a multi-sectoral crisis.

The city of Saint Louis – where I am from – for example,  is facing a lot of consequences due to sea level rise. Europe can still feel the consequences because most people that have their small economies around these areas end up trying by any means necessary, whether legally or illegally, to move from Saint Louis to Europe. That leads to illegal immigration, which Europe is currently talking about a lot.

This is just one example of a consequence in one small city. But climate consequences impacts almost all economic sectors, plus everyday life and in all parts of the country.

Among other examples, we have recurring droughts, salinisation of the agricultural lands, and there's less and less rain. When the rains come now they are just a one  heavy shot, and that causes a lot of floods.

And the economy depends a lot on the climate. First of all, we will have to recover from these losses and damages, and that will cost us a lot of money. So that means Senegal, which is already a developing country, will have to dedicate nearly half its budget to recovering from loss and damage of a changing climate we have least contributed to.

You can imagine that if we spend a lot of this money every year to recover from losses and damages, there will be less and less resources allocated to other basic important sectors like health, education and poverty in general.

So where the fund is really special is in that situation, Senegal can concentrate on lifting people out of poverty because we know that there is a loss and damage fund from which we can take and then recover and continue our path to development.

Unfortunately, if that fund fails to support developing countries like mine, that means we will have to continue to rely on a system which is keeping us in a vicious cycle of  exploitation and poverty among many other issues we already now.

And not only Saint Louis will suffer from it, but so will all the surrounding neighborhoods and then all other countries. Because if we don't build a sort of a global solidarity, whatever the consequences are in some parts of the world, the other parts of the world will have to face it.

What is LDYC working on right now? 

One important project we are working on includes our Loss and Damage Finance Now campaign we started since 2020 . It is a multi stakeholder campaign which is the basis of the creation of the Coaliton, to create a space first for us to discuss meaningful actions for loss and damage and to advocate for a loss and damage fund that is meaningful, equitable, and grant-based.

We have created an open online platform running for three years where people can share their stories of loss and damage, stories that we are trying to bring into the mainstream. We are also training young people who are in need to get to know about the decisions on loss and damage and how they can impact these decisions at the national level.

The other part is trying to lobby from the inside and from the outside to get meaningful decisions made on loss and damage. While we obviously have the fund now, that doesn't mean it's the end of the discussions of loss and damage. So we're trying to keep the pressure inside the negotiation rooms by engaging with stakeholders and getting young people in the negotiation rooms as well as outside the negotiation rooms on the streets and other meaningful places with the aim of not leaving the debate in the hands of leaders.

We also have a research working group under the support of partners. The idea is to get more young people involved in research because one of the issues when it comes to loss and damage is the data that we don't have. 

Last year, we published our first brief on noneconomic loss and damage and documented loss and damage in some countries like Nigeria. This year, we're trying to work on a Loss and damage framework that will have different recommendations on existing gaps to be shared by the end of the year in the lead-up to COP 29.

And last, since 2023, we’ve had a participative Loss and Damage Youth Grant Making Council, a council of youth that seeks to address issues related to access on finance for youth organisations. Thanks to partners, last year we granted eleven youth organisations to support them to take meaningful actions to address loss and damage.

This year as well, we’ve launched a call for applications in February to grant a total of around $250,000 USD to selected youth organisations working to take actions on loss and damage in their countries. We’ve received around a thousand applications which are being currently reviewed. 

Get involved in the Loss and Damage Youth Coalition here.

You can donate to LDYC’s mission here.

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