Q&A with Marcele Oliveira, Youth Climate Champion at COP30

Leeds COP30 Delegate, Matthaeus Menezes Assef, had the opportunity to ask Marcele Oliveira, the Youth Climate Champion for COP30, a few questions about her hopes for the international climate negotiations:

1. As Youth Climate Champion, what’s your mission or role in the lead-up to and during COP30? What are your expectations?

The role of Youth Climate Champion within the COP Presidency was first created at COP28, held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in 2023. The idea was to give young people a strategic voice in global environmental debates and to ensure that youth perspectives were included in the climate negotiations.

The first Presidency Youth Climate Champion (PYCC) was Leyla Hasanova from Azerbaijan at COP29, and Brazil now holds the second such mandate in the world. The selection process was carried out through a public call that received 154 applications, with 24 young people shortlisted.

Being appointed by President Lula brings the responsibility of promoting broad social participation in environmental discussions, both inside and outside the COP30 venue, while leading a Global Youth Climate Effort that reflects the perspectives of young people, local biomes, Indigenous peoples, Latin America, and the Global South.

2. How are you making sure youth from the Amazon and across Brazil are part of this COP?

I’m the second person in the world to hold this position. When Brazil launched the selection process, instead of individual applications, youth movements decided to organise collectively. We agreed it was important for the representative to be someone from the periphery, someone Black or Indigenous. From there, we built the idea that, regardless of who was selected, there should be a team of young people working alongside them.

I was the one appointed, but many of those who took part in the selection now work with our team or are part of our network. The UN designed the position in one way, but we’ve adapted it to the Brazilian reality - we believe in social participation. This gives visibility not only to the Amazon but to all of Brazil’s biomes.

For me, it’s an honour and a great responsibility, but also a joy to lead this mandate with other young Brazilian activists from every region and ecosystem, making it more representative.

We call it a “mutirão” (collective effort), which recognizes the many youth-led projects that protect nature and ecosystems at the local level, even if they lack international visibility. What happens on the ground is what truly guarantees climate adaptation — the same adaptation that’s constantly discussed on the international stage.

3. Why is youth engagement so important in the climate discussions of 2025?

Children and young people are among the groups most affected by the climate crisis. In 2024 alone, UNICEF’s study Learning Interrupted: Global Snapshot of Climate-Related School Disruptions found that in 85 countries, at least 242 million students had their education disrupted by extreme weather events such as heatwaves, cyclones, storms, floods, and droughts.

This makes it more urgent than ever to include the voices of young people in climate decision-making. After all, they are the ones already suffering - and who will continue to suffer the longest - from the impacts of climate change on health, education, employment, and income.

Across the world, youth are already leading key initiatives on issues such as climate adaptation, environmental racism, revision of NDCs (Nationally Determined Contributions), climate finance, culture, inclusion, and meaningful participation of new generations.

Whether through local and regional youth conferences (like COYs and LCOYs), through spaces of influence such as the Youth Working Group of the Parliamentary Environmental Front, or through civil society organisations, young people are already building solutions.

But we cannot be treated as decorative figures at events, we need real spaces of participation, where our ideas are taken seriously and incorporated into public policy. There are young people transforming the world right now; they just need to be heard and included, both in discussions and decisions.

4. What do you hope young people will take away from COP30?

We need to look with care at our own realities - our communities, cities, and neighbourhoods. Between rivers and seas, we can’t allow ourselves to be isolated by concrete or by precarious living, studying, and working conditions.

We need public policies grounded in climate, racial, economic, and gender justice, and we need to take part in shaping them. We must abandon this culture of destruction and apocalypse, and instead use creativity and artistic expression as:

1. a way to expose violence, neglect, and injustice, and
2. a platform to raise awareness and combat disinformation.

This collective youth movement, this mutirão, can do much more than just advance the climate agenda. It’s our moment, as diverse young people, each in our own way, to declare the kind of world we want to live in.

My future is greener, with greater respect for traditional cultures, more green parks in the outskirts, and more funding for youth-led projects. I hope COP30 ends with the Youth Climate Effort (Mutirão das Juventudes) becoming a reality.

5. If you could share one message with world leaders at COP30, what would it be?

I am honoured to serve as the Youth Climate Champion for COP30, a COP hosted in Brazil, in Latin America, representing the Amazon and all our biomes.

Let’s build, together with young people, a contribution to COP30 that doesn’t stay confined within the conference walls, but resonates across the world, carrying with it our way of seeing and reimagining the planet.