On 16 and 17 October 2023, Congress Representative Belinda Gottardi (SOC/G/PD, Chamber of Local Authorities), and Catarina Semedo de Oliveira, Congress Youth delegate for Portugal participated in the 29th Lisbon Forum. This year’s Forum focused on “Human Rights, Environment and Economic Crimes: Youth at the forefront”.
Belinda Gottardi underlined the key role played by local and regional authorities in addressing and anticipating climate change and environmental challenges.
She stressed the Congress’ work to support local and regional authorities in their evolution towards greener practices and policies. She referred in particular to the Congress’ proposal to elaborate an additional Protocol to the European Charter of Local Self-Government, in order to ensure that local authorities take environmental issues into account when designing urban planning or local policies. This would be a concrete contribution to the Council of Europe’s commitment to prepare new European standards on these matters. She said that setting legal frameworks is an essential step to provide a basis for individual action and strengthen it.
Highlighting the importance of engaging young people in decision-making processes she presented the youth delegates initiative for rejuvenating politics initiated by the Congress which allows youth representatives from all member States to take part in the work of the Congress and share their opinion and work during the plenary sessions.
Catarina de Oliveira said she felt lucky as a Congress youth delegate to have a platform to express her views and opinions. “We need to ensure that this is a reality for everyone, especially for the young people who are most affected by climate change, who do not always feel empowered enough to sit at the discussion table. If we make education a place where young people are taught how to work on and share their ideas, we are not only ensuring that young people are able to take more effective action, but also that they truly have a voice that they are able to use.”, she underlined.
