(L-R) Guillaume Trap (FJSL); David Delli Zotti; Sousana Eang (FJSL); Ella Tham; Amelia Hatch; Alina Liedtke; Bartlomiej Nowak; Illona Dausse; Credit: FJSL

The Fondation Jeunes Scientifiques Luxembourg (FJSL) has reported that a delegation of six young scientists has just returned to Luxembourg after a week spent in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, in the context of the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28).

Following their "outstanding" performances at the annual "Jonk Fuerscher" (young scientist) contest, organised by the FJSL, these young people were awarded the opportunity, with the support of Luxembourg's Ministry of the Environment, Climate and Biodiversity, to present their environmental research projects in the Benelux pavilion at COP28. These projects, all carried out while their young authors were still secondary school students in Luxembourg, were the subject of a session of six oral presentations, followed by a roundtable, on Friday 8 December 2023 (declared by the organisers as "Youth, Children and Education" theme day). The FJSL noted that this session "enabled the voices of junior scientists to be heard at a conference which traditionally gives the floor to senior diplomats".

These young people also had the opportunity to walk the aisles of the Dubai 2021 World Expo site, alongside almost 100,000 other delegates from around the world, in both the famous "blue zone" (restricted access, attended by negotiators and officials) and the vast "green zone" (free access, hosted by businesses and local institutions).

Bartlomiej Nowak, David Delli Zotti, Alina Liedtke, Illona Dausse, Amelia Hatch and Ella Tham were thus able to freely attend the open sessions organised in the plenary rooms and national pavilions on the sidelines of the negotiations. National experts such as Thomas Schoos, advisor at the Environment Ministry, and Dr Andrew Ferrone, meteorologist, member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and negotiator within the Luxembourg delegation, also took them behind the scenes of these intense negotiations aimed at carving out a text to combat global warming, explained the FJSL.