Ineza and the others: the world saved by girls

We breathe the same air, drink the same water, live under the same sky. The effects of climate change will be in every corner of the planet: we leave no one behind. The words of Ineza Umuhoza Grace, the young environmentalist from Rwanda, stand up on the night in Rome dedicated to the Earth. “Earth For All”, the Green&Blue festival has chosen a place, the Temple of Venus in front of the Colosseum, which is already the symbol of the link between the past and the future. And with Ineza, who has founded two NGOs that help young Africans to create a sustainable future for themselves and has asked for compensation for the damage done in Africa by climate change, there were three other young women on stage.

They represent a new way of telling the world that climate change can be stopped, man and nature can live in harmony. They are young and very young like Licyprya Kanguyam born in India, she is just 12 years old and is already able to speak with political leaders.

Thanks to his sit-ins, the president of India has signed a law against air pollution. And Sophia Kianni, an Iranian-American representative of the UN Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change. Her goal is to translate into all languages ​​the knowledge necessary for everyone to fight the battle against global warming. With them on stage also Maya Gabeira, the Brazilian champion of giant waves chosen by Unesco: «The ocean is my home. It’s magical and powerful. I ride its waves and I’m happy if I can help save it with my surfboard.” A star of the Biggest Waves, she has decided to intertwine her life with conservation by accepting to become the Unesco Ocean and Youth Champion. At the forefront of mobilizing the new generations. Where will she get inspiration from? From the waves and the wind. They also came to Rome together with Espen Stoknes, Norwegian economist and director of the Center for Sustainability.

To support the proposal of a team of experts from the Club of Rome who focus on solutions and not on problems: “Earth For All”, a manual for the survival of the Earth, in fact, and the strength of the message lies in considering the contrast to change climatic not only as linked to the energy mix, which is also indispensable; but as something that passes from the end of poverty, the reduction of inequalities, a new role in society for women and a transformation of the system by which we produce and consume food. Environmental sustainability and social justice. To tell “Earth for All: a survival guide for Humanity” is Sandrine Dixson Decleve, another woman who fights for the climate, co-president of the Club of Rome, who said clearly: “We must put an end to the obsession with growth”. Do we know how to reverse course? “For the first time in history we know how to end extreme poverty on Earth. We live in an extraordinary time.”

Espen Stoknes participated in the drafting of the report: “Five u-turns to build new economies by 2050 so as not to be overwhelmed by the looming emergencies: energy, food, poverty, inequalities, women’s issues”. It’s possible. But in the night of Rome the music of two exceptional pianists also rises: Beatrice Rana and Frida Magoni Bollani. And when Carlo Petrini, from the stage, says that “there can be no ecological justice without social justice” and Carlo Ratti, director of MIT’s Senseable City Lab, describes sensitive cities where nature, architecture and citizens harmonize, we return to what said the founder of the Club of Rome, Aurelio Pecci. It was 1972: «Man is the problem, but also the solution». From the Green&Blue festival in Rome this really seems possible.