00:00I am very happy to have this meeting with you because what you do today is very important.
00:09It is very important to hear and listen, to work with these young people,
00:16who in all the countries of the world, in all the cities represented here at the C40,
00:22organize marches every Friday, but also actions to raise awareness
00:29and to ask the adults that we are to act, to stop talking and to act.
00:49It's very inspiring to see how we work together and how people like you,
00:56like mayors of big cities, are ready to lead the way.
01:00And I think it's great because from my part, Brussels is not part of the C40,
01:06so when I come back home, I can tell them, you have no excuse no more.
01:11What the young people tell us is really the result of this climate emergency,
01:18of this feeling of climate emergency.
01:20Their testimonies are powerful.
01:22It's true that earlier, during the press conference we had,
01:26I think everyone was crying because what they told us
01:30also challenges us in our role as adults,
01:34beyond a political responsibility or other.
01:39I am a victim of this whole climate crisis and I am not ashamed to say so.
01:46After the massive effects of climate change in my home village,
01:50my parents had to sell off our land and livestock to sustain our lives.
01:55And when the money was over, it was a question of survival and death.
02:01There is gravity, there is anxiety among young people
02:06who tell us that they want to be able to live tomorrow,
02:10that they want to be able to build their future
02:13and that if we continue as we have done so far,
02:18they will no longer have the capacity to build this future.
02:21It has to be discussed as one of the greatest human rights violations that has ever occurred.
02:28I think it's crazy how we know that we are just destroying ourselves and we keep doing it.
02:36I know it's suicide, we know it's like, and still we keep doing it for the sake of the growth.
02:46I am not pessimistic, you know, I am optimistic
02:51because I say often, if you can talk, if you can work, if you can act,
02:58your duty is to be optimistic.
03:05As mayors, we have long understood the importance of working with associations,
03:12with economic environments and with young people.
03:15Everywhere in our cities, we have citizens' councils,
03:18youth councils that come to bring this word to young people.
03:22But here we are at a time that is certainly a turning point in our history
03:28and moreover in the history of humanity,
03:30because these young people do not simply call us to consult them,
03:35to listen to them from time to time,
03:37but really to build with them the solutions that will allow them to be responsible adults tomorrow.
03:57Mayors are not politicians like the others.
04:00First of all, they are there and they have to make decisions every day
04:05to manage their cities, to facilitate, to improve the quality of life of the inhabitants.
04:10And we must precisely make this balance between the fact that often
04:17we can be tempted to say, let's keep the system, people do not like change
04:23and let's not go too fast.
04:25What young people tell us is that it is enough,
04:28we no longer want to hear that we have to wait,
04:30we no longer want to hear that we should not go faster,
04:34because in fact today the feeling is really that of an urgent feeling.
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