In Mindanao, more than 70% of the Climate Reality Leaders belong to the youth sector. They form part of different organizations and are driving actions in their respective schools and communities, including but not limited to clean-up drives, tree planting activities, waste segregation campaigns, youth parliament conferences, and campaigns for climate-related policies.

The Sangguniang Panlungsod of General Santos City is tackling adopting a resolution from the GenSan Youth Parliament urging all the government offices and barangay halls to utilize solar energy for regular operations.

Authored by Climate Reality Leader Roxanne Kythe Fado (Roxanne) of Kimba, Sarangani, the resolution aims to call on government offices to “utilize or switch to solar energy on regular operations by installing solar panels on their establishment as the latter provides reliable power supply, fuel diversification and helps conserve the state’s natural resources.”

This is an encouraging action to amplify the call for a just energy transition to renewable energy for cheaper, reliable, resilient, and clean energy.

On the other hand, Climate Reality Leader Antonio Regis, Jr. (Tony) was among the country’s youth from across the world who attended the Stockholm +50 in Sweden and presented a policy paper to world leaders calling for an “urgent need for actions to achieve a healthy planet and prosperity.” 

The youth called on governments, among others, to “protect and restore all ecosystems by halting deforestation, banning bottom trawling, unsustainable mining, and other environmentally destructive practices” and emphasized that “the best solution to many of our environmental problems lies in letting nature heal itself.” They also pushed for the introduction of large-scale environmental destruction, known as ecocide, as a crime in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, “as a means to hold governments and corporations accountable for their damage to our common plant, submit strengthened nationally determined contributions (NDCs), financing commitments and long-term strategies in 2022 to halve global Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions by 2030.”

Learnings, aspirations, and challenges

Kem participated in the Circular Agriculture Workshop and Innovation Challenge 2022, where he learned more comprehensively about food systems, climate change, innovation, circular economy, and entrepreneurship.

Climate Reality Leader Maria Elvy Dominicata (Elvy), on the other hand, recently started using solar lights overnight at home and consciously adopting waste segregation at home. 

Elvy was once an advocate for “Bayang Walang Basura” during her engagement with the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM). She is currently a Project Officer of the Movement Against Malaria and would like to bring climate change awareness to rural communities.

Climate Reality Leaders in SOCCSKSARGEN, meanwhile, underscored the importance of simplifying climate change concepts to help different stakeholders understand them better. This remains a challenge, but our leaders are committed to pushing further not just in communicating the climate crisis but also in mobilizing climate solutions to communities.

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