ILO Director-General gave a speech during the 21^st Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change

On November 8^th, during the COP21, developed in Paris, France, Guy Ryder, ILO General Director, called governments, workers and employers from all over the world to focus on training and education for youth to unleash the potential for creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship.

The General Director gave two clear messages. The first message was that there is a link between climate and youth unemployment as these are urgent crises to be addressed. Currently, there are 74.5 million unemployed youth in the world, which means that young people are three times more likely to be unemployed: “Young people are at the sharp end of the labour market.”

Furthermore, even though youth cannot be held responsible for the climate change, they will be the generation suffering the consequences if no actions are taken.

Therefore, Ryder made it clear that we must “find integrated responses to these pressing, yet connected challenges of youth employment and climate change.” In order to achieve this, governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations must work together and design policies, strategies and actions.

“Finding solutions requires that youth be empowered and enabled to make use of their talent, creativity, dynamism, and spirit of innovation and of entrepreneurship to bring about the responses that we need”, said Ryder.

The second message was that policies in education, training and skills building are needed to prepare youth for addressing climate change.

“Strengthening our education and training systems to bridge the gap between the skills we have and the skills we need seems to me an absolute priority if we are to ensure a sustainable and just transition to low carbon societies”, pointed out Ryder.

ILO’s experience has shown that with proper support, talented young women and men can find decent work and create decent work through their own enterprises, and in that way generate employment opportunities for others.

Ryder stated that “As we look to the future, it is imperative that governments, workers, employers come together to build on the areas of training and education that will unleash the potential for creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship that will best serve the needs of our communities, and of the planet.” And it is vital to include youth in the design of policies and decision making processes over these issues.

You can read Guy Ryder’s full speech by clicking here.