The Global South Climate Scholarships for Youth shall cover all costs of travel (to and from international tickets), accommodation, visa, travel insurance fee, food, local transport and other costs for the selected applicants to participate both in the UNFCCC’s 24rd Conference of Parties (COP 24) and the 14th Conference of Youth (COY 14) in Katowice, Poland in December 2018, also providing the selected applicants with online Capacity Building Training sessions about the process, prior to their travel to Katowice. 

Young people around the world are actively engaged in the effort to address climate change, leading and participating in a multitude of initiatives at the local, sub-national, national, and international levels. Their strong commitment to working on this issue has also motivated them to participate at international climate negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Although the youth participation in the UNFCCC has steadily grown, and youth being recognized as official constituency in 2009, it still continues to suffer widely from uneven geographic distribution of origin of participants.

The Global South Climate Scholarships for Youth 2018 – intends to bring more young people from developing countries to feed into COP24 and open doors of United Nations for such youth.

In 2009, youth participation in UN Climate Change had reached the level at which an official constituency was formed for youth NGOs. UN Climate Change recognized youth as an official constituency called “YOUNGO” (Youth + NGO). After two years operating under a provisional status, “YOUNGO” became fully recognized at COP17 in Durban, South Africa. YOUNGO has since served as both the official conduit for youth participation in the UN climate talks and as a global network of youth and youth-focused organizations that work on climate change and engage with UN Climate Change.

There are several ways YOUNGO engages in the UN Climate Change process, including through constituency submissions on various topics as and when called for by UN Climate Change, sending representatives to various UN Climate Change meetings throughout the year, engaging directly at COP and intersessionals.

Eligibility

Please note the following information very carefully:

As a GSCSY applicant, you must be:

– Be below 35 years of age on 31st October 2018.
– A national (hold nationality aka citizenship) of a country belonging to Global South and hold a valid passport.
– Able to secure a formal registration (known as “accreditation”) from the UNFCCC in order to attend both weeks of COP24. Accreditation can only be provided by “admitted observer organizations” (https://unfccc.int/process/parties-non-party-stakeholders/non-party-stakeholders/admitted-ngos/list-of-admitted-ngos) or governments. Without accreditation, it is not possible for you to attend COP24 and thus be able to participate in the GSCSY. If you are affiliated with an NGO or government that can provide you with accreditation, please indicate this at the requested point in your application. If you are not able to provide your own source of accreditation, then you are still welcome to apply for the GSCSY, but your eligibility will be contingent upon the GSCSY Team being able to find a source of accreditation on your behalf. Please know that all accreditations are strictly controlled by the UNFCCC, and as such, the GSCSY team CANNOT guarantee being able to find you accreditation for COP24 (and if we cannot find it, then any applications without it will unfortunately be ineligible). Thank you for your understanding.
– And you ensure us that, you will be available to travel to Poland for the full duration of COY14 and COP24 – from 26 November 2018 until 16 December 2018 and shall also be able to get engaged in the preparatory phase online!

• Your application can be counted as invalid if:
  – your details are incorrect/incomplete and/ or the application has obvious mistakes,
  – responses exceed the word limits,
  – false statements are given,

  Since the number of applications are expected to be high in number, we would request you to please be very precise in your answers. Feel free to use bullet points/write answers point-wise in the paragraph type questions.

  Click Here to see if you are eligible to apply.

  If you are stuck in the application, you can always save it and come back later.

  We wish you all the really best, and really hope that you can join us on this wonderful learning experience!

  Deadline: October 27, 2018