Avery Smith, a senior at Thornwood High School, said his favorite moment at the 28th annual United Nations Climate Change, or COP28, conference hosted in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates was listening to a panel discussion with Indigenous people from Canada about how climate change affects them.
“It was a panel of four women, and the elder was talking about how the hunters and the trappers in their culture rely very heavily on nature,” Smith said. “With climate change, they didn’t know what to do. They didn’t have anything to pass down to the next generation because their knowledge was antiquated. It didn’t apply anymore because the climate changed that much.”
Smith, of South Holland, said he had the opportunity to interview the elder and they had a powerful conversation about the effects of climate change.
“That’s the crux of everything, but especially the climate conversation,” Smith said. “If you have a group of people who think that the problem only affects them or that the problem doesn’t affect them, then you’ll never fix the problem, because the truth is the problem affects everybody. If the problem affects one of us it affects all of us.”
Smith said he first became interested in learning about climate change three years ago when he joined Community and Economic Development Association of Cook County’s Green Generation, or G2, summer program. Through G2, Smith said he learned about home performance and urban sustainability. Now, he is the G2 Sustainability Youth Council president.
“It felt like an opportunity, and so I took advantage of it. It turned out being one of the better, most memorable experiences of my high school career,” Smith said. “Through that, I kind of became entrenched in the climate crisis.”
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In June, Smith gave two speeches at GreenTown Climate & Equity conference at Triton College, organized by Seven Generations Ahead. His speeches caught the attention of representatives with It’s Our Future, Seven Generations Ahead’s youth environmental advocacy program, who ultimately invited him to be one of six area student COP28 delegates.
“He made a huge impression. He was an excellent speaker,” said It’s Our Future manager Rachel Rosner.
The summit, which ran through Dec. 12, brought together thousands of people, including politicians, business leaders, climate experts and environmental advocates from around the world. The global summits are convened to find ways to address the climate crisis, such as limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, helping vulnerable communities adapt and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
Smith said the delegation’s trip from Dec. 1- 9 was his first time out of the country. The conference was divided into the green zone and the blue zone.
The green zone, which was open to the public, felt more like a museum where people could learn about climate change. The blue zone, which required tickets, was where policymakers held talks, panels and “where the real U.N. stuff happens,” Smith said.
For example, the first day Smith went to the blue zone was to listen to former Vice President Al Gore give a presentation on a new technology called Climate Trace that tracks and measures greenhouse gas emissions.
“They can now fairly accurately, or at least more accurately, tell which countries are polluting and from where and what those sources are. Now, the idea is, that the nations of the world have no choice but to be accountable,” Smith said.
Another moment he enjoyed was listening to former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton moderate a panel about the need for women in the climate change conversation.
“If women are included in the conversation, if women are not repressed from the conversation, if you open your mind enough to listen to what a woman has to say, the climate conversation can at least take a step forward in a new direction,” Smith said.
The delegates, Rosner said, enjoyed talking with people experiencing climate change in real time and returned energized.
Smith said his main takeaway is the interconnection of climate change.
“We’re all connected. We need to be kinder to one another. We need to help people where we can. It may not seem that way, but we help people when we live sustainable lives,” Smith said.