Lycée Aline Mayrisch Students to Participate in European Youth Climate Summit

Students from Lycée Aline Mayrisch in Luxembourg will take part in a European youth climate summit, which is being held online on Thursday 18 and Friday 19 March 2021.

This event, organised by the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), will follow the framework of a United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference.

After being cancelled in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 epidemic, "Your Europe, Your Say!" (YEYS), the EESC's flagship youth event, is returning with its eleventh edition this week. Under the slogan “Our climate, our future!”, it will bring together students from 33 secondary schools from all over Europe, who will discuss the best steps to take to protect the environment.

During the opening session, on 18 March, participants will meet with European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans, who is responsible for the Green Deal for Europe, and with the President of the EESC, Christa Schweng. At the summit, the plenary sessions will be chaired by Cillian Lohan, EESC Vice-President and green economy activist.

The 33 schools selected to participate in this initiative were chosen using an electronic selection tool, during a draw which took place on 27 November 2019 in Brussels. As such, for each of the 27 EU Member States and the five candidate countries (Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey), as well as the United Kingdom (UK), one school has been selected, which will be represented by three of its students, aged 16 to 18, and accompanied by a teacher. Nearly 800 establishments applied for this year's edition.

The objective of the meeting is to gather inspired ideas from these students, in terms of facing the current climate crisis and to move forward towards achieving the goal of becoming climate neutral by 2050. Participants will be asked to take on the role of representatives of different sectors, industries or groups of countries and to negotiate among themselves. Supervised and guided by young leaders, they will discuss their proposals on the basis of a Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

They will meet representatives of international youth organisations, who will help them to translate their ideas and suggestions into concrete recommendations, which will be submitted by the EESC to international environmental policy makers and discussed at conferences which will take place across Europe throughout the year.

To prepare for the debate, an EESC member will visit each participating institution, in person or by video conference, to discuss the EU and the Committee, as well as the work they do in favour of young people, while explaining the event and the expectations placed in the schools concerned.

Representing Luxembourg this year are three students from Lycée Aline Mayrisch. The full list of participating establishments is available here.

More information on the 2021 edition of "Your Europe, Your Say!" is available on the official event page.