Representing YEL in Morocco, at the annual gathering of world leaders and heads of international organisations, we had Maïa Madani Davies (Director of Partnerships), Christian Neubacher (Vice President for Strategic Partnerships), Isabelle Pickett (Partnerships Officer), Maxime Zadel (Partnerships Officer), and Krista Tammila (Delegations Officer). This year’s Spring Meeting was on the subject of the North-South shared objective on ‘Fair Transitions’.
In the morning, chaired by Pascal Lamy (Vice-President of the Paris Peace Forum and Chair of the Climate Overshoot Commission) we analysed how the youth can lead responses on facing climate overshoot risks with the main takeaway to phase out fossil fuels by using solar radiation modification to offset human-caused global warming which would have the potential to lower the Earth’s surface temperature which is paramount to not overshooting the 1.5°C warming goal of Paris Agreement – we are already nearly at a concerning 1.45°C. Young people’s voices are pivotal in enriching and supporting this agenda, as seen with their Youth Engagement group, who actively work with the Commission to implement the goals and solutions. This was echoed by our YEL representative, Isabelle, who asked what more youth organisations, like Young European Leadership, can do to combat the threat within the European framework.
In the afternoon, the session that stood out the most was Bertrand Piccard’s inspiring talk on how he aims to perform the first non-stop, zero-emission flight around the world in a green hydrogen-powered airplane. This would be an outstanding accomplishment for the aviation industry and can be adapted into other industry sectors. This mission, in collaboration with Piccard’s Climate Impulse and the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, presided over by Hicham El Habti, has a research team encompassing around 70 students from UM6P who expect the flight to be completed by 2028. We look forward to seeing the results and as Piccard stated: the future is now.
The Spring Meeting 2024 held in Morocco was truly amazing to attend and meet other notable figures who are creating change within the green energy industry. We thank Mathilde Boulogne and Sarah Benelhadj for the invitation and the hard work of both them and their team for making this Spring Meeting a true success.