The Global Ethical Stocktake opens space for participation and recognizes the transformative potential of children and adolescents
By Rafaela Ferreira | COP30
The Global Ethical Stocktake (BEG, in the Portuguese acronym) is taking another important step, expanding the debate on understanding the climate crisis to include children and adolescents. With the goal of bringing together individuals, groups, institutions, and communities from around the world to engage in dialogue, listen, reflect, and propose pathways toward a fairer, more sustainable, and more supportive world, the Stocktake places ethics at the center of decision-making. BEGlobal is a worldwide call to climate action in the lead-up to COP30, scheduled for November.
Children and adolescents are individuals in development, with their own ways of seeing, feeling, and interpreting the world. By creating a representative and global space for listening, BEGlobal opens the door to their participation, recognizing both their transformative potential and their right to take an active part in conversations that shape the present and future of the planet.
Isis Akemi, General Coordinator of the Department of Environmental Education and Citizenship at the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change (MMA), explains that children and adolescents are rights-bearing citizens who can and must express their views, particularly on the issue of climate change.
“All the challenges related to climate change will be inherited by future generations. The impacts, the climatic imbalance, and everything we are facing today tend to worsen in the near future. In this context, it is essential that children and adolescents have their voices heard to propose ways to prevent such collapse and to keep the climate crisis from deepening,” said Akemi.
The inclusion of children and adolescents in the GES dialogues is an effort by the Presidency of the Republic of Brasil, the United Nations Secretariat-General, the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change ( Ministério do Meio Ambiente e Mudança do Clima ), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ( Ministério das Relações Exteriores ), and civil society entities with recognized experience working with this special audience. The goal is to empower the voices of children and adolescents concerning climate action and just transition, reaffirming that they are subjects of rights and agents of transformation in the present, not just the future.
One of the commitments of the Global Ethical Stocktake designed for children and adolescents is to avoid reinforcing fears or fueling climate anxiety. Instead, the initiative seeks to strengthen bonds, inspire collective confidence, and cultivate dreams that allow us to imagine other possible worlds.
Fernanda Oliveira, a consultant with the Department of Environmental Education and Citizenship at the MMA, explains the importance of adapting BEGlobal’s methodology to engage with this audience. “We must be careful in conducting these dialogues so they do not result in pre-packaged answers. We do not want children and adolescents to tell us what we wish to hear, but rather to ensure their contributions are genuine and spontaneous. This is why dialogues must be guided in a way that respects their own forms of expression. Another challenge is an emerging reality: climate anxiety, or eco-anxiety. It is important to bring discussions about the climate and environmental crisis into their universe without generating excessive concern about their future and that of humanity,” she said.
Akemi also emphasized that the inclusion of children and adolescents in the conception of the Global Ethical Stocktake has always been part of the discussion. However, this age group was not included in the methodology initially launched because it was first necessary to reflect on the precautions required when addressing the climate crisis with this audience, in order to avoid triggering climate anxiety.
The aim is for the discussions raised by BEGlobal with children and adolescents to create real opportunities for participation, recognizing both their transformative potential and their right to be active contributors to conversations that shape the present and future of the planet.
To this end, self-managed BEGlobal dialogues are being held with children and adolescents. These are free and decentralized gatherings organized by schools, educators, collectives, families, social movements, networks, and communities, with the goal of listening to what boys and girls think, feel, and desire regarding the world in which they live. For an activity to be considered part of BEGlobal, it must meet three requirements: it must respect the Guidelines for Working with Children and Adolescents; it must gather at least 20 participants between the ages of 11 and 17; and it must respond to at least one of the five common Guiding Questions.
The meetings follow the same methodological approach as BEGlobal dialogues with adults, but in language that is more accessible, playful, and sensitive to the diversity of childhoods and youth. The objective is to listen to the perceptions, feelings, ideas, and proposals of children and adolescents regarding the world they live in and the world they wish to create, and to do so respectfully, ethically, and in an inspiring way, ensuring their right to participation and protagonism—rights so often denied to those excluded from decisions that shape our shared future.
A document is being prepared to guide the self-managed dialogues of the Global Ethical Stocktake with children and adolescents.
Inspired by the Global Stocktake process of the Paris Agreement, the Global Ethical Stocktake proposes a collective and in-depth dialogue on the moral and civilizational dilemmas that the climate crisis imposes on humanity. BEGlobal invites religious leaders, artists, Indigenous peoples and local communities, youth, scientists, business leaders, women, activists, and policymakers from all six continental regions to reflect on the values, behaviors, and responsibilities that must be transformed for the commitments made at UN Climate Conferences to become reality.
The initiative is led by the Circle of the Global Ethical Stocktake of the COP30 Presidency, which brings together the President of Brasil and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, with support from the Presidency of the Republic, the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the UN Secretary-General’s Office for Climate Action and Just Transition.
