It was in a group on a chat app that I received news of a Brazilian activist named as one of the seven members of Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change, a kind of young advisors in the climate of the Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), António Guterres. It is from Brasília, in the Brazilian Center-West, that Paloma Costa, 28 years old, comes from, the only Latin American on the list, which also includes young people from Sudan, Fiji, Moldova, the United States, France and India.

The same Brasília, occupied by the second largest biome in South America and also the second Brazilian biome in number of deforestation alerts and deforested areas: the Cerrado. In 2019, according to data from MapBiomas Alerta, almost 409 thousand hectares of area were deforested – more than 33% of all deforestation in the country.

Paloma is a lawyer, human rights defender and coordinator of the Climate Working Group of the NGO Engajamundo. Over the past two years, she has been the coordinator of the youth delegation sent by the NGO to COP 24 in Poland and COP 25 in Spain. It was in Katowice in 2018, in the first delegation coordinated by Paloma, that the Hamangaí Pataxó Hã-Hã-Hãe became the first indigenous person to be part of the Engajamundo delegation.

Climate activist

Despite her young age, Paloma has a strong history of fighting against inequality and, more recently, against climate change. From the young woman who collected trash from ecological parks near her home to being invited to opening at the Climate Action Summit 2019, alongside the UN Secretary General and young climate activist and Nobel Prize nominee Greta Thunberg.  

Paloma's activism record in the area is quite extensive: in addition to participating in two COPs; she was also at the Latin America and Caribbean Climate Week, in Salvador; one of the 30 members of Abu Dhabi Youth Voices; participation in the Youth Climate Summit and the Climate Action Summit, in New York; Youth Summit; and even participation in the 43rd session of the UN Human Rights Council, where she represented civil society on the topic of youth and climate.

With a voice that brims with energy, and at the same time chokes up when talking about the role of traditional peoples in keeping the forest standing, Paloma celebrates the achievement of representing Brazilian youth – in the plural, as she repeated several times throughout the interview – in the Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change.

“It is a milestone in the youth struggle to be able to occupy this high-level space, so restricted and traditionally occupied by heteronormative white men. It is a huge responsibility to connect the voices of Brazilian youth, indigenous people, quilombolas, and peripheral communities, so that our voices are not just a cry for hope, but serve as binding demands for actions and decisions that will be taken in these spaces,” he says.

A long way to go

Transparency in data, accessibility to information and more democratic climate education are some of the themes defended by Paloma, who believes that, in order to lead the necessary actions, young people need to be aware and able to understand which solutions need to be addressed. For her, it is essential to incorporate into the imagination of young people in Brazil what the climate crisis means and how it will impact the entire population, with an emphasis on the most vulnerable: young people, women, black people, peripheral and traditional populations.

It was at the last COP, in Madrid, that the young activist celebrated a small achievement for the most vulnerable populations: the approval of the Gender Action Plan (GAP). The document places gender equality as one of the ways to combat the climate crisis.

“When we started the Fridays for Future (movement started by the Swedish Greta Thunberg) in Brazil, I understood the need to look at climate awareness and education before any activism. There is no way for any person, in a vulnerable situation or not, to participate in any debate or decision-making process without access to information. And to have access, we need the information to be available, transparent and easily accessible”, she states.

Paloma also demands that companies play a greater role in combating climate change. “I invite all companies to take responsibility for reversing, as far as possible, the impact they have caused, and that this reparation be made in the impacted region, for the community that was affected. Companies need to assume their collective socio-environmental responsibility. If they do not, we, as future leaders, will not work, buy from, or finance these companies. If there is no change in attitude, in the future, these companies will no longer have a place.”