Youth Forum highlights generational effects of pollution

In the Youth Forum organized by the Chemicals and Waste Youth Platform at the Basel, Rotterdam, and Stockholm Conventions COPs 2025, dozens of young people from around the world delivered a clear message: youth are shaping the present, as well as laying the groundwork for a toxic-free and healthier future.

In the Youth Forum, and throughout the Conferences of the Parties of the three conventions, youth delegates stressed the strong connection between pollution, health, and human rights, as well as the long-term impacts of today’s mismanaged chemicals and trash, including plastics.

Ensuring that young people are involved, present, and at the table in international negotiations is a priority for the Global Environment Facility, which sponsored three youth delegates to the biannual meetings in Geneva.

Photo credit: Chemicals and Waste Youth Platform

Marinda Imakulata Tagiilima Leiataua, a 22-year-old environmental specialist from Samoa who attended the COPs with GEF support, said that spending much of her childhood outdoors helped spark her strong drive to do what she can to protect the environment, specifically around waste management, chemicals, and climate change. 

She said engaging with other young leaders and participating in discussions in Geneva had helped energize and inspire her, and fueled her interest in finding paths to engage in and influence policy discussions at home and internationally. 

“Most of the times, these decision makers set goals that most of the people working in grassroots work hard to achieve on a daily basis,” she said. “Working together with youths and meeting youths from all around the world with different backgrounds, expertise, experiences, and cultures, coming together for one purpose, is very inspiring to me. That is what gives me hope to keep doing what we can for the environment, for the people, for the coming generations.”

Rafael Eudes Ferreira, a 27-year-old chemical engineer from Brazil who also attended the BRS COPs with GEF support, focused on the need to advance environmental justice and youth engagement in global policy processes, including ongoing discussions towards a new international plastics treaty. A third GEF-sponsored delegate, 22-year-old Esquire Henry from Antigua and Barbuda, also stressed connections between chemicals management, sustainable agriculture, and the long-term health of both ecosystems and people – priorities at both the national and international levels. 

The three sponsored delegates engaged in the Youth Forum alongside representatives of the GEF, and also participated in the COPs – advocating, networking, and working to elevate solutions to chemical and waste challenges. In conversation with GEF CEO Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, they shared their hopes and concerns for the future, including the importance of including youth voices, needs, and ambitions in policy-setting as well as investment planning.

“It is a true pleasure to support and engage with these young superstars, who are not only the world’s future environmental leaders – they are today’s leaders as well,” Rodríguez said. “I was once in their shoes, and I have nothing but admiration for the vision, ideas, and energy that young people are contributing to these important conversations and processes.”