UN Youth Environment Assembly to be Held at Suwon Convention Center on 14-15

The UN Youth Environment Assembly will be held at the Suwon Convention Center on the 14th and 15th.

[Asia Economy (Suwon) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] The UN Youth Environmental Assembly will be held in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province.

Suwon City announced on the 9th that the '2023 UN Youth Environmental Assembly,' hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), EcoMom Korea, and the World Federation of United Nations Associations (WFUNA), and co-organized by Suwon Convention Center and EcoMom Korea, will take place over two days from the 14th to the 15th at the Suwon Convention Center.

The UN Youth Environmental Assembly is an educational program aimed at deriving solutions to overcome the global environmental crisis from the perspective of youth. This year, 300 middle and high school students and university student chairpersons from 12 countries including South Korea, Canada, the United States, Peru, Ecuador, South Africa, and Somalia will participate. The event will be held in a hybrid format, combining both in-person and online participation.

The official agenda of this assembly is "Climate Crisis & Cities." Since the 4th, the youth participants have been conducting pre-mission programs investigating environmental issues in their assigned countries and seeking practical alternatives.

The main assembly will open at 1 p.m. on the 14th. Ban Ki-moon, the 8th Secretary-General of the UN, will deliver the keynote speech, followed by congratulatory remarks from Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, Minister of Environment Han Hwa-jin, British Ambassador to Korea Colin Crooks, U.S. Ambassador to Korea Philip Goldberg, and Kim Hyo-eun, Climate Change Ambassador of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On the same day, participants will hold official and unofficial meetings by committee, adopt a "resolution," and draft a concrete "action plan" on how to implement it.

On the 15th, the closing ceremony and side events will be held. The Gwanggyo Youth Orchestra will open the closing ceremony with a special performance. Kim Sang-hyup, Chairperson of the 2050 Carbon Neutral Green Growth Committee and the organizing committee chair, will deliver the closing remarks, and Lee Chang-hoon, President of the Korea Environment Institute, will give a special lecture. The "Eco Leaders Panel Talk" will feature participants including Julian Quintart, a broadcaster and EU Climate Action Goodwill Ambassador.