Coco de Marneffe and Ian Muir Smith, both FCLC ’22, were the lead organizers of this year’s Local Conference of Youth (LCOY USA), an annual event that brings together over 125 young people from across the country carefully selected for their leadership in the climate movement. Ashira Fisher-Wachspress, FCLC ’23, and current Fordham student Kenny Moll were also part of the 15-person organizing team for the event, which took place in Tempe, Arizona in September.

De Marneffe, who majored in theology, served as the conference’s general coordinator. She said a “Religion and Ecology” class she took her senior year, taught by Christiana Zenner, Ph.D., started her down this path. She hopes LCOY will inspire other young people to get involved in climate advocacy. 

“You don’t have to be a Nobel Prize-winning scientist to contribute to this work. You just have to find your place in your community,” she said. “For me, it started with one class I took in college. Thanks, Fordham.”

The National Youth Statement

The centerpiece of the conference is the National Youth Statement, a list of climate-related policy demands that the young delegates draft together. Smith describes the statement as a democratically-crafted tool that advocates can use to push policy makers further on climate change. Once complete, the statement is shared with local governments and incorporated into the Global Youth Statement, the official youth stance on climate change presented at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Conference of Youth and Conference of Parties, which will be held in November in Baku, Azerbaijan.  

Smith acknowledges that some of the statement’s demands may seem radical — such as disbursing at least $446 billion annually in climate finance to the Global South, or increasing federal investment in public transportation to reduce car dependency by 50% by 2030 — but he says that’s as it should be. “It’s the responsibility of youth in some ways to push our policymakers to consider what is radical. Really, it only seems radical because what we’re doing now is so inadequate,” he said. 

Climate Week in NYC

De Marneffe, Smith, Moll, and Fisher-Wachspress also organized a NYC Climate Week event, which coincides with the U.N. General Assembly in New York City. There, they presented the National Youth Statement to U.S. climate negotiators from the State Department as well as to other young climate organizers. 

“A lot of this work is unglamorous,” said de Marneffe. “What makes it worth it is the people around you who are encouraging you, and who believe in the same things you believe in.”