The Climate Action Summit of the Secretary-General of the United Nations in September 2019 will be one of the most important global climate action events of the year. The Secretary-General has announced that he wants to see “unprecedented youth and civil society mobilization and engagement” as one of the main outcomes of the summit.

The #ActionNow campaign is designed to help achieve this ambitious aim with the power of music and a combination of technology-facilitated local and global level mass mobilization activities.

At the ECOSOC Youth Forum side event, there will be:

• welcome by Polish Mission
• presentations and discussion on youth empowerment for climate action in the context of Agenda2030 and the UNFCCC process/Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action
• a keynote presentation on the topic “Harnessing the power of music for Enhanced Climate Action” with Grammy award-winning artist Ricky Key from India
• a presentation of the #ActionNow campaign & the Earth Music Awards and youth climate action engagement information and ActionNow communication technology tools like cheerity.com
• presentation of partners (e.g. UNESCO MOST, EarthLanka, Earth Day Network, Friendship Ambassadors Foundation, ..)
• a discussion of the #ActionNow youth and civil society mobilization plans with the audience (ECOSOC youth forum participants, partners of the initiative, delegates of missions, ..)

Outcomes

• participants of the event will learn about the UN SG Climate Summit and about innovative ways for youth and civil society mobilization for climate action
• the event will serve as a soft launch of the Earth Music Awards 2019 Call for Music
• the side event will be an opportunity for ECOSOC YF participants to become engaged in the initiative as musicians, local event organizers or outreach partners