Mayor of Paris discusses the climate crisis with young people from different countries

Brut America

They've been protesting and demanding action for months... Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo met with some of these young people to discuss the climate emergency, during the C40 Cities World Mayors Summit.

Transcript

00:00I am very happy to have this meeting with you because what you do today is very important.

00:09It is very important to hear and listen, to work with these young people,

00:16who in all the countries of the world, in all the cities represented here at the C40,

00:22organize marches every Friday, but also actions to raise awareness

00:29and to ask the adults that we are to act, to stop talking and to act.

00:49It's very inspiring to see how we work together and how people like you,

00:56like mayors of big cities, are ready to lead the way.

01:00And I think it's great because from my part, Brussels is not part of the C40,

01:06so when I come back home, I can tell them, you have no excuse no more.

01:11What the young people tell us is really the result of this climate emergency,

01:18of this feeling of climate emergency.

01:20Their testimonies are powerful.

01:22It's true that earlier, during the press conference we had,

01:26I think everyone was crying because what they told us

01:30also challenges us in our role as adults,

01:34beyond a political responsibility or other.

01:39I am a victim of this whole climate crisis and I am not ashamed to say so.

01:46After the massive effects of climate change in my home village,

01:50my parents had to sell off our land and livestock to sustain our lives.

01:55And when the money was over, it was a question of survival and death.

02:01There is gravity, there is anxiety among young people

02:06who tell us that they want to be able to live tomorrow,

02:10that they want to be able to build their future

02:13and that if we continue as we have done so far,

02:18they will no longer have the capacity to build this future.

02:21It has to be discussed as one of the greatest human rights violations that has ever occurred.

02:28I think it's crazy how we know that we are just destroying ourselves and we keep doing it.

02:36I know it's suicide, we know it's like, and still we keep doing it for the sake of the growth.

02:46I am not pessimistic, you know, I am optimistic

02:51because I say often, if you can talk, if you can work, if you can act,

02:58your duty is to be optimistic.

03:05As mayors, we have long understood the importance of working with associations,

03:12with economic environments and with young people.

03:15Everywhere in our cities, we have citizens' councils,

03:18youth councils that come to bring this word to young people.

03:22But here we are at a time that is certainly a turning point in our history

03:28and moreover in the history of humanity,

03:30because these young people do not simply call us to consult them,

03:35to listen to them from time to time,

03:37but really to build with them the solutions that will allow them to be responsible adults tomorrow.

03:57Mayors are not politicians like the others.

04:00First of all, they are there and they have to make decisions every day

04:05to manage their cities, to facilitate, to improve the quality of life of the inhabitants.

04:10And we must precisely make this balance between the fact that often

04:17we can be tempted to say, let's keep the system, people do not like change

04:23and let's not go too fast.

04:25What young people tell us is that it is enough,

04:28we no longer want to hear that we have to wait,

04:30we no longer want to hear that we should not go faster,

04:34because in fact today the feeling is really that of an urgent feeling.

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