The Sunnfjord municipalities are taking young people seriously in the climate change debate. Just before Easter, Marie Ponttopidan, Ingjald Pilskog, Synnøve Kvamme (Naturvernforbundet) and I travelled to Førde to have a dialogue with local young people about climate change and their ideas for the future. The aim of the evening was to give the young people the opportunity to influence the new inter-municipal climate plan that the Sunnfjord municipalities (Førde, Jølster, Naustdal, Gaular) are collaborating on.

Over 80 young people turned up to listen and be listened to. The evening started with an inspirational talk by Synnøve Kvamme about the impact young people can have. She proved that activism is not a waste of time. Young people can impact the system! She recounted her amazing journey with the “Hardanger mast” case, and the work that she, and her colleagues at the Naturvernforbund continue today.

Then it was Uni Research/R3-team’s turn to inform and hopefully inspire. Ingjald and I presented a background to climate change and how climate models work. Marie went into more detail about a possible scenario for future change coming out of her simulations for the Sunnfjord region. Marie described how her model simulations described future climate, including details about temperature and rainfall. Much of Sunnfjord is along the coast so Marie relayed information about future sea-level rise from the Norwegian Climate Service Centre. The aim of our presentations was to fuel for the group discussions about local-scale adaptation and communication. After all, no-one can discuss adaptation if you have no idea what you have to adapt to!

After a short break and a good laugh from stand-up comedian Maria Stavang, we gave all the participants two challenges: to come up with climate adaptation ideas, and ways to communicate climate knowledge throughout their local communities. We also tried a nice way to arrange these discussions. We used a pyramid framework, where the participants firstly discussed the challenges in pairs for 5 minutes. Then two pairs joined to make groups of four. They had 10 minutes to discuss which of their strategies they preferred to take to the final round of discussion. Finally, two groups of 4 joined to make groups of eight and they continued their discussions for 15 minutes. In the final 5 minutes, we gave them the opportunity to wonder around the room and listen to other groups and put their names to a different group’s solutions if they liked them better.

The participants came up with some amazing solutions and important issues that the municipalities need to consider when formulating their climate plan. When it came to adaptation the young people were overwhelmingly concerned about landslide protection. One of the participants told us that he was afraid to ride his bike along a certain stretch of road because of how often landslides happen there. Sunnfjord is very prone to landslides making the roads particularly hazardous during poor weather conditions. These poor conditions will likely occur more often in the future! When it came to communication, the young people were very keen to get lessons on climate and the environment better integrated in to the school curriculum, even at the kindergarten-level. They wanted more opportunity to combine entrepreneurship with climate-friendly ideas in inspire the next generation of sustainable solutions. In essence, they wanted to dialogue about climate and the environment to continue, and they wanted this to be integrated in to the climate plan.

Six of the participants joined us the next day for a feedback meeting with the municipality (most of whom were at the event the evening before!). The six young people presented what had happened the evening before and their suggestions for what the climate plan should include. The meeting illuminated the youth’s desire to keep the dialogue going. Hopefully, the young people in Sunnfjord will organize climate/environment seminars or conferences in the future! In the end, one of the girls asked the all-important question to the municipality: what are you going to do about it? What will the municipalities do with the suggestions the young people proposed? Hopefully the dialogue will have a direct impact on the development of the climate plan and that the youth will be mentioned specifically for their input.

One thing is for sure; the municipalities in Sunnfjord are open to a respectful dialogue with the young people in their communities. They take the young people seriously and actually listen to them. The meeting ended with a conversation about the next climate seminar/conference for young people in Sunnfjord. The municipalities seemed very keen to for this type of event to continue and involve even more young people in Sunnfjord. But next time, the young people will organize the event on their terms. Hopefully we’ll get an invite.

Thank you to Førde, Jølster, Gaular, Naustdal and Florø municipalities for inviting us to be a part of this rewarding event where we truly saw how local young people can be part of a decision making process on such an important issue of climate change! We hope to hear much more from the young people of Sunnfjord!!