By Thomas Dye
During the United Nations COP28 climate conference, students, politicians and activists gathered at De Montfort University in Leicester to discuss climate policy and address questions about why young people are disengaged from politics and how to address that.
Students from DMU and nearby sixth form colleges attended an event at the campus in Leicester during which they were linked live to an address and the reporting team at COP28 in Dubai, one of the last conferences before the Paris Agreement’s 2025 deadline for a peak in greenhouse gas emissions.
Following the on-site introductions, back in Leicester, the students then formulated questions to a panel of four politicians and two activists on climate change asking how better to address young people’s concerns regarding climate change.
The prospective parliamentary candidate for Labour in Leicester East and former deputy mayor of London, Rajesh Agrawal, spoke repeatedly on his belief in ‘innovation’.
Addressing a question on sustainable fashion, he said: “With innovation we could produce sustainable fashion, with lots of room for growth.”
He was unavailable for further comment or explanation after the event, arriving just before going onto the panel and leaving as soon as it ended.
Also on the panel was Paul Hartshorn, the prospective Liberal Democrat candidate for South Leicestershire, who answered a question of the government’s role in mitigating private businesses’ effect on climate change.
He said: “Private industry is driven by profit,” adding that, through regulation it “must be forced to work sustainably.
He added: “Only the government can force, put pressure on MPs [to enact these policies].”
That point was refuted by Emma de Saram, a climate justice activist and trustee of the group Students Organising for Sustainability, who chastised politicians for “working with and accepting bribes from fossil fuel companies”, specifically targeting Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for his ties to BP.
She said MPs could work to make it more affordable for individuals to behave sustainably but said an example of government inaction was how current energy laws have functionally inflated the cost of renewable energy.
She cited the journal Carbon Brief when saying that energy produced by wind farms has “one-ninth the cost” of non-renewable sources.
Liz Sahu, a Green Party councillor on Leicester City Council, said: “It is an assumption that it is more expensive to be environmentally conscious.”
She pointed to individual choice being a factor in personal response to climate change, encouraging audience members to “consume less”, before highlighting the work done by retail company M&S to achieve sustainability.
Throughout the Q and A sessions, two major points were reiterated by the students watching and the activists on the panel; that students and young people are disaffected with government action, and the belief that sustainability cannot be a choice but simply must be achieved by mankind.
This latter point was made most impactfully by another panellist, former Extinction Rebellion activist Chay Harwood, who spoke on how unsustainable fast fashion practices have also led to increased exploitation of vulnerable workers, citing the 2013 Rana Plaza collapse as an example of how unsustainable practices in production are also dangerous.
As the event ended, the DMU organisers stressed how attendance at an event like this highlights that if the government and politicians want young people to be more active in politics, they must demonstrate that they are listening.
This statement is corroborated by a 2022 parliamentary report that said 60 per cent of 18 to 25-year-olds think politicians don’t care, and highlighted the 54 per cent turnout of 18 to 24-year-old voters in the 2019 election.
Panellists Liz, Chay and Emma all agreed the way to combat political apathy, especially around climate change, is to ensure when events like this are held that those in power acknowledge the event and act on the concerns raised.
Emma said: “There is no other option than protests. Politicians, you do not listen to us.”
For more information on sustainability at DMU, visit www.dmu.ac.uk/about-dmu/sustainability/sustainable-campus/environmental.aspx
