Climate change and the environment

Event report

As a contribution to the Conference on the Future of Europe, six students from the Secondary 7 class of the Tallinn European School participated with their class teacher in a panel discussion at the Embassy. After a brief overview on how climate change might affect Hungary and a short introduction to the idea of the Conference, participants elaborated first on the practical implications of climate change. Due to its complexity, it was agreed to be multifaceted, causing change within all aspects of life, like the landscape and ecosystem itself, the currently applied technologies or the jobs we have. It already affects the poorer people much more, in a geographically uneven way, but can lead to (further) division within society, changes in food production and consumption, all forcing us to adapt to new living standards and situations. Students were aware of multiple projects launched in and by the EU, like the short-haul flight ban in some countries or the need to replace older car fleets with new (e.g. electric) vehicles around Europe as a way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transport. Regarding transportation, government policies for tax reduction/exemption or development on new battery technologies were seen as a step in the right direction. However, the EU cannot take action alone, major players like Russia, China and the US should be also on board. As the cost of changing entire production lines and industries might be too steep, attention should be given to negating the visible side effects of climate change, like recycling CO2 emissions. Raising awareness to climate change and its effects within countries should be stepped up, as it is generally easier to stick to old habits than to adopt new, life-changing decisions having a positive effect in the end. Sustainability of products should be better advertised. Creating trust was raised as an important topic. Due to the overflow of publicly available information, it is difficult to make proper decisions. As you want to act responsively and think critically, education has a key role in giving the safe tools to younger generations to help quickly select relevant data. It is also difficult to be environmentally conscious in more than a few things, you have to set clear priorities. Negative consequences of climate change can actually help people notice the problems, but at a higher price, and once again, it can have a more serious effect on the poorer segments of society.