Global south countries, like countries in Africa, Southeast Asia, etc. experience the worst effects of climate change. Flooding devastating cities’ infrastructure, sweltering heat destroying crop yields that the local community relies on – in these countries, resources for dealing with these climate disasters are more limited than in the Global North.
Even though most people in the Global North that are involved in the climate movement know this, it’s difficult to actually understand and empathize with the communities that are being hit the hardest. Oftentimes because we don’t hear their stories. We don’t hear how their lives are turned upside down after a flood hits their town. We don’t hear about the impacts that rising temperatures are having on their local agriculture. And we also don’t hear about how people in these communities, especially youth, are leading movements within their towns, states, and countries to fight the climate crisis.
This series is meant to uplift the voices of youth that are on the frontlines of the climate crisis. Today, we’re hearing the story of Yazid Mikail, a youth activist from Nigeria. He believes in the power of storytelling and policy advocacy to generate change, especially at the community/local level. We’ll hear from him about the power of local environmental action, the role youth play in local/state policy, and the projects he’s been engaging in in his home state of Kaduna, Nigeria.
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Host: Katherine Li
Writer/Producer: Katherine Li
Guest: Yazid Mikail
Audio Editor: Raphael Mukondiwa, Katherine Li
TRANSCRIPT:
KATHERINE:
Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Operation climate, the podcast made by young people for young people where we talk about climate change solutions with cool people and learn about how we, as young people and students can take action in the climate movement. This episode is the first part in our series, youth on the frontlines. The climate crisis obviously affects all of us because it affects everyone in the world. But it doesn't affect the world equally. Global South countries like countries in Africa, Southeast Asia, etc, experienced the worst effects of climate change, flooding, devastating cities infrastructure, sweltering heat, destroying crop yields that the local community relies on. In these countries, resources for dealing with these climate disasters are more limited than in the Global North. For example, at the beginning of this year, the island of Sumatra in Indonesia had insane rain events, leading to flooding that displaced 30,000 People ruined rice crops and infrastructure damage devastated the local economy. The 2019 2020 Desert locusts plague that hit Eastern Africa, which was likely exacerbated due to changing rainfall patterns, placed enormous stress on the food security of the communities that lived there. Even though most people in the Global North that are involved in the climate movement, know that the impacts of climate change are not distributed equally. It's difficult to actually understand and empathize with the communities that are being hit the hardest. Oftentimes, because we don't hear their stories. We don't hear how their lives are turned upside down after a flood hits their town. We don't hear about the impacts that rising temperatures are having on their local agriculture. And we also don't hear about how people in these communities, especially youth, are leading movements within their towns, states and countries to fight the climate crisis. This series is meant to uplift the voices of youth that are on the frontlines of the climate crisis. Today we're hearing the story of UC McHale, a youth activist from Nigeria,
YAZID:
My name is Yazid Mikail from Nigeria,
KATHERINE:
he believes in the power of storytelling and policy advocacy to generate change, especially at the community and local level. We'll hear from him about the power of local environmental action, the role youth play in local and state policy and the projects that he's been engaging in in his home state of Kaduna, Nigeria a lot of us on the front lines are introduced to the climate movement because of their lived experiences precede His environmental journey started when he noticed Stark changes to his community.
YAZID:
From used to be a green covered before surrounded by many rural communities green covered with trees are always a place someone always would want to visit for relaxation or connect nature recently due to higher rate of deforestation. Lots of the trees in the community are no more most of them being cut down for some opera done for cookie policies and some awkward for building. So now the environment is not as tstv and as the word is Pat me see how we can restore some part of it by planting trees and engaging the community members in ensuring the sustainability of the trees were planted.
KATHERINE:
Because of what he experienced in his community is eat embarked on a project called 10,000 trees for Kaduna. During his time on this project, he saw the importance of sustainability. And I don't mean sustainability as a general concept. I mean, incorporating sustainability plans within your environmental projects to keep your impacts sustain. Sure, you can say that you're going to plant 10,000 trees. But what's the follow through for making sure those newly planted trees aren't kicked down by kids playing soccer, which was actually a sighted concern by school officials in Kaduna? How do you make sure that those trees aren't neglected that they actually grow and have all the positive environmental impacts that they're supposed to?
YAZID:
Then we embark on these trees. Now, what makes it to be so interesting is the is the ownership we give communities because we realize we can't plant trees in this community without having these people taking full ownership to protect it, ensure that the trees live. So we give communities that we are engaged in the full ownership of it, and how interested communities are distributed is what even inspired me more, because it's now clear to them that this deforestation has a negative impact on them because As he exposed them to environmental degradation and other stuff that makes the community vulnerable. He was really interesting to go back to some communities as it is trees grown up. And you know, the excitement you feel that you see the impact you've made in a community does what exactly making projects.
KATHERINE:
When you give a community the tools to organize and lead themselves, amazing things happen.
Unknown Speaker
In Kaduna, one of the climate effects that impacts citizens the most is increased flooding, flooding in Kaduna forces 1000s of people to relocate, it destroys farmland and livestock, and it results in death. In 2018, it was reported that 53 lives were lost due to flood in both had Cena and the Kaduna states. And I encourage you to look up pictures of this flooding. It's crazy vehicles on the road are nearly swallowed by the floodwater. Another huge climate effect in northern Nigeria is desertification. This is when land becomes increasingly dry, like a desert and vegetation can't grow. So what helps with both flooding and desertification, planting trees, why trees can reduce soil erosion, promote water infiltration into soil, make the flow of water slower etcetera. So this project really looked at the problems that Kaduna was experiencing, and took a very specific solution to address those problems. Because you'd worked on policy advocacy within his home state, this is how you got started
YAZID:
studying out I realized that we can really make change, you know, working on policy, because use words that use as a guide is very important. We use them to hold government accountable, because every provision in aid is what the government had promised to do for people. So I started exploring policy and see how I can meaningfully engage government on policy into in 2021. I work in the review of the nationally determined contribution policy for Nigeria, and in 2021, as well towards nd myself and team work on resource mobilization for the implementation of Kaduna state environmental policy, and ensure green the scale of UNDP GEF project, where we actually do is the policy was done in a garage. So it's like some actionable column in it. So from our knowledge of policy advocacy, we're able to see how we can help government realize that there is need for a review of this policy. So we developed a policy brief or factsheet, to bump up our evidence presented to stakeholder and see how they can improve and let them realize
KATHERINE:
having your voice be listened to as a young person and being taken seriously as a challenge that zt has definitely gone through with his policy work. But he stresses the importance of determination and energy as tools to get stakeholders to listen.
YAZID:
There are people with our so it's Ric Flair organization. And as a young person, it's very hard to reach them directly. I can remember growing numbers of times you see a stakeholder and we have to wait on the doorstep for hours before they come. And after all, if they come, they might not even give us audience that we might have to be shared, shared or shared, always had that cause numbers of time but because we are committed to achieving what we set out to achieve, we keep going, going going and meet them. And initially where it used to be when you invited for policy review. These leaders have deep seated and they present what they have. They don't listen to young people. So we demand that we should be meaningfully engaged. We are sitting down, we need to be meaningfully against and listen to what we have contributed on the policy because I realized that most of the policymakers who just had young people seated just to show the world the inclusive and ensuring the occurring young people alone, while not listening to them, they are just they're more or less like a pictures. So that is what we are trying to change the narrative buy used committed and being hard on them to ensure that we do what we want. We don't get tired.
KATHERINE:
Speaking of the power of youth is he believes that there is a gap right now in policy decision making spaces that young people should feel.
YAZID:
So me I feel it's very important that young people are engaged in policy making very important because what we are showing aim to avoid is the mistake Our grandparents lead by not teaching us what is problem us since we're young. And the policy that will be developed will not be implemented by the people that develop it fully, because it will be there for generations to come. And in generation, if young people of this generation are not part of the policy, then it will not be a problem because young people need are not well integrated in the policy because they are not meaningfully engage. So, it is very important that young people are meaningfully engaged in policy, design and policy decision making, so that whatever decision they are making, that has to do with young people in it, young people are part of the decision.
KATHERINE:
I think a lot of people think of the environmental and climate movement in a really big picture way. Like we need these commitments at a federal level, these agreements at the international level, etc. But a lot of solutions are created at the local level. With community based action at the local level, you'll see much quicker changes that improve the prosperity of the people and environment around you. And partisan challenges that exist at the state and federal level aren't as big of an issue. So your state's leaders aren't making ambitious climate plans. That doesn't mean all hope is lost for where you live. Take Copenhagen, for example, they were the first capital city of the world to make this ambitious of a climate goal, carbon neutral by 2025. They've improved their public transportation system, waste management system made buildings more energy efficient, and more, even though their country is led by a center right political party who doesn't necessarily have as ambitious of goals as Copenhagen does. Here's his take on why local action matters.
YAZID:
When you're talking about a global action, before they could reach down to the community, it's going to be very hard. So as an environmentalist, it's very important you start from your community where the problem is from, because all those little local actual, you're doing that people don't really count that they really count because you can start by solving instant problem. And by doing that, it's kind of give you a more clear understanding of what problem you're solving. When you engage the problem from its roots where it starts from, let's say your community is facing fluid or how do what what would you do to stop the fluid? Do you need more drainages do you need, what do you need, you can just go to the top and the axon for something that would be difficult, you can just start by getting people in the communities create a drainage. When you do that you're kind of given given the government a framework to work with because they already see what you are doing in the community. And they would engage you in seeking more actual because they believe you have the intellectual capacity to ensure that the project is well implemented, even if they are going to do it in a large scale. We need to start from the bottom. But the problem is really affecting people
KATHERINE:
is it is living proof that the contributions from young people create real changes. He saw environmental problems and his community organized to address them. And his work started getting noticed opening up new opportunities for policy engagement.
YAZID:
You know, the the encouragement you see when people recognize what you are doing, and people begin to take more action, you kind of feel fulfilled because you already seen the impact your little contribution is making on people on policymakers. So that's one of the most exciting part of a gorgeous
KATHERINE:
We hope you enjoyed this episode and use each story and learn that the power of local and community based action in the environmental movement is very important. Here's some action items. Read up on climate effects in the Global South. We'll have some resources linked in the show notes. And think about the environmental issues that your own community needs addressing electrifying your transportation system, reducing food waste, cleaning pollution from your rivers, what exactly is happening in New York community and how is it affecting the people around you?
YAZID:
My call to action is young people should be meaningfully engaged. Aside from sitting them down and listening to their presentation. They should be meaningfully engaged and be part of the environmental governance. They should be part of the polycentric governance that would work towards mitigating the climate change impacts in their community and on their people.
KATHERINE:
Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of Operation climate to stay up aidid on future episodes, make sure to subscribe on Spotify and Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts for a full transcript of this episode and links that you can explore. To learn more about what we cover today, head to our website at bit.li/operation Climate podcast to stay updated about other operation climate things, follow us on our socials. We're at Operation climate on Instagram and at Operation climate on tick tock. Make sure to subscribe to our newsletter too. You can find that on our website, and we'd love to hear from you. So give us a rating and review on Spotify and Apple podcasts. That would be amazing. And we hope to see you next time