How the youth movement will affect climate change
Speakers
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Student, UWC Robert Bosch College
Selina Neirok Leem, an islander from the Republic of the Marshall Islands, is currently attending her last year of high school in the UWC (United World College) Robert Bosch College in Freiburg, Germany. The school is a prestigious international program that offers the International Baccalaureate Diploma. Prior to her coming to Germany, she was a student of the Marshall Islands High School.
Until she was 16 and moved to Germany, she spent her entire life on her home atoll, Majuro, also the capital of the country. She grew up with her large family; her grandparents, her parents, her uncles and aunts, her cousins, and her six siblings. Selina was influenced a lot by her grandparents who would tell her Marshallese stories and legends before she went to bed. They also emphasized the importance of education, taught her Marshallese values, and so much more.
She credits her grandfather for her deep awareness of the increasing fate of her island home through his stories about how the ice in the North Pole and South Pole were melting and would soon flood the Marshall Islands. He helped her become much more aware of her surroundings, of the fact that she was literally surrounded by water.
Coming to Germany, Selina took on the role of a climate change advocate for her country. She saw all that had happened throughout her years of living on her atoll as the changing of the climate became more prominent and wanted to share with whomever she came across. She was even more inspired when she saw that she could reach a much wider audience here in Europe in order to spread more awareness.
Representing the Marshall Islands, Selina was the youngest delegate at the COP21 in Paris. During the closing remarks, then Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony deBrum gave her the opportunity to give the final statement on behalf of her country. She told the world that Paris agreement, “should be the turning point in our story; a turning point for all of us.”
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Chair of The Elders, The Elders
Mary Robinson is Adjunct Professor for Climate Justice in Trinity College Dublin and Chair of The Elders. She served as President of Ireland from 1990-1997 and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997-2002. She is a member of the Club of Madrid and the recipient of numerous honours and awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom from the President of the United States Barack Obama. Between 2013 and 2016 Mary served as the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy in three roles; first for the Great Lakes region of Africa, then on Climate Change leading up to the Paris Agreement and in 2016 as his Special Envoy on El Niño and Climate. Her Foundation, the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice, established in 2010, came to a planned end in April 2019.
A former President of the International Commission of Jurists and former chair of the Council of Women World Leaders she was President and founder of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative from 2002-2010 and served as Honorary President of Oxfam International from 2002-2012. She was Chancellor of the University of Dublin from 1998 to 2019.
Mary Robinson serves as Patron of the International Science Council and Patron of the Board of the Institute of Human Rights and Business, is an Ambassador for The B Team, in addition to being a board member of several organisations including the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and the Aurora Foundation. Recently she became joint Honorary President of the Africa Europe Foundation. Mary’s memoir, ‘Everybody Matters’ was published in September 2012 and her book, ‘Climate Justice - Hope, Resilience and the Fight for a Sustainable Future’ was published in September 2018. She is also co-host of a podcast on the climate crisis, called ‘Mothers of Invention’.
