‘Start With What Feels Closest.’ Read an Indonesian Student’s Correspondence with the UN Resident Coordinator on the Climate Emergency

“In the past two years, my reality, yours, and many others, has changed dramatically.” So begins the letter 20-year-old Indonesian student Nadya Zafira penned to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres ahead of COP26, the crucial conference being hailed as the most important global gathering on climate change in years.

In her wide-ranging letter, Zafira, an international relations student at Indonesia’s Universitas Gadjah Mada, addresses the inequalities the COVID-19 pandemic has made stark and what that portends for the looming climate emergency. She also considers whose voices are prominent and whose are marginalized in global conversations on climate change.

“The youth is not a monolithic group,” Zafira says, noting the different experience of young Indonesians living in urban centres like Jakarta and indigenous youth living in rural communities. This diversity, she says, “should not be an impediment, rather it becomes an opportunity to have a richer experience of youth activism.”

Zafira’s letter was among 43 submitted to the UN Association of Indonesia (UNAI) as part of a competition the youth-led association organized in the run up to UN Day on October 24.

UNAI’s judging panel said it hoped Zafira’s entry would “inspire all actors, including youth and the United Nations, to care more about our shared world and act for a better future.”

UN Resident Coordinator Valerie Julliand is the highest UN official in Indonesia and the Secretary General’s representative in the country. Read Zafira's prize-winning letter as well as the UN Resident Coordinator's reply below.

Nadya Zafira’s letter to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CVuyvH_POWZ/

Resident Coordinator Valerie Julliand’s reply to Nadya Zafira.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CWKtMZ9pacf/