23rd August 2021, BRICS Youth Energy Agency registered the first ever BRICS Youth Energy Compact. This document is one of the most ambitious contributions of young people to the UN High-Level Dialogue on Energy 2021, which unites top national energy representatives and is held later this month after a nearly 40-year pause. The Compact Mission is to ensure that 100 million young people aged below 30 years from the BRICS countries share the vision for a sustainable and clean future of energy in alignment with United Nations’ SDG7 and the corresponding goals.
The BRICS Youth Energy Compact reflects a common effort of the youth community led by BRICS Youth Energy Agency and covers six priority actions that young people with support of their natural partners are ready to deliver by 2030 to enable a more sustainable future and achieve the ambition. All actions include versatile commitments that recognize youth as one of the leading agents of change and range from supporting youth-led research and scaling capacity-building of quality to ensuring young people partake in formal decision-making boards and panels at both municipal and national levels:
- To involve young people into the youth-led research to reflect on the prospective energy solutions and strategies.
- To ensure multi-level youth policy-advocacy in the relevant decision-making processes on the future of energy.
- To raise awareness about energy sustainability among young people and empower them via capacity-building.
- To engage municipalities in the direct dialogue with young people on the sustainable urban development.
- To channel the opinions of young people in the international processes related to the climate change and carbon neutrality.
- To provide a platform for multi-stakeholder global and regional discussions among young people.
The Compact also underscores the particular importance of facilitating fair youth representation at multilateral international mechanisms, such as those of the UN, where key decisions on the future of energy and related fields are taken and where youth perspective is crucial. The fulfillment of the commitments will lead to the following results:
- The cumulative number of individual developers of the Annual BRICS Youth Energy Outlook and the relevant studies account for 5000 people representing the youth demographic group of 100 million people aged 18-30.
- BRICS Youth as regional geographically defined group is well-represented in the main impactful youth mechanisms [hidden] and other multi-lateral organisations where each of BRICS countries is engaged.
- Each of BRICS Member States, e.g. national energy and youth authorities, consider the inputs of young people as their contribution to the sustainable development of the energy sector through the mechanisms by BRICS YEA, i.e. the BRICS Youth SDG Forum, BRICS Sustainable Ideas Bank and the Annual Campaign #FromBRICSwithSDG, #TogetherBrighter International Energy Saving Festival.
- 50 engaged municipalities from BRICS countries ensure the youth representation in the decision boards on the sustainable urban energy planning to balance the stakeholder group influence.
- Ensure that the BRICS countries (5 relevant national authorities) grant an access to young people as a stakeholder group in the national and the relevant intra-BRICS climate policy boards to ensure that the youth voices are considered in the planning processes.
- The golden million global community of SDG7 and SDG13 responsible young people exists in the BRICS countries which unite the largest population aged under 30 years old.
In order to keep track on our progress, the BRICS Youth Energy Compact commitments will be subject to a yearly review within the SDG7 Delivery Statement at the Annual BRICS Youth Energy Summit. This year, the Compact will be officially presented at the UN High-Level Dialogue on Energy and will be then featured at COP26.