​FerMUN 2014: Opening Ceremony, 8 january 2014, Geneva, Switzerland

Juliana Rademaker, FerMUN14 Secretary General

"It's getting hot in here …so take off all your clothes!" 

The famous words of R&B star, Nelly, are truer than one might think. It really is getting hot in here. Take off a layer

Distinguished delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The world's average temperature is rising every year and is expected to be 5 to 10 degrees higher by the end of the century. Studies confirm this is a much larger increase than in the last ten millennia.

This is one of the many consequences of Global Warming, along with retreating glaciers, famine, climate refugees, and new diseases. The earth is undergoing truly drastic changes.

In our modern world, with mass consumption and ever increasing needs and desires, we don’t fully realize the long-term damage that we’re inflicting. Human activity is progressively increasing the atmospheric concentration of gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect. The planet is heating up, and human kind could well be in real danger.

But what is missing is a sense of urgency. If you agree with the factual analysis but you don’t feel the urgency, then we won’t change anything. Our generation needs to realize the urgency and to act now.

What we need is another generation of heroes. We, the young generation, are faced with a choice. Apathy, or engagement? We have a planetary emergency. So what are we going to do about it?

Look at history: those who fought against apartheid and racial discrimination, they were heroes. Those who abolished slavery, they were heroes. Just like them, we can be heroes when it comes to climate change.

Don’t tell me we don’t have the capacity. This may be the greatest ever challenge faced by any generation so far. But I believe we can rise to this challenge. We can be the generation that, in a hundred years from now, poets, singers and artists will celebrate, saying “they were the ones that did it! They saved the world and gave us a future!”

The 2014 FERMUN Conference can be our starting point. But how to make it happen?

I’m not a soldier but my grandfather told me that military conflicts are divided into three categories: local battles, regional battles, and sometimes important global ones. Each level of conflict requires a different strategy and different tactics. The battle against global warming falls into similar categories.

Most of us can easily picture the local environmental battle: air pollution, waste disposal. Regional environmental battles include river pollution and acid rain. Rising sea levels, …. Are global battles.

We have to mobilize globally for renewable energy, energy efficiency, and a global transition to a low carbon economy. We must strive for national policies that protect the resources we share with our neighbours. But none of this will succeed if we don’t also fight the local battles. Each one of us here in the room today can contribute to improve the environment, making changes at the local level, however

small. We may be small cogs in the machine, but it really matters that we each care. And we must all engage in the global debate.

Like Mahatma Gandhi famously said: “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” (1, 2, 3…)

We will be in charge of the planet in a few years from now! A scary thought. What kind of a world do we want? We will be voting, we will be managing companies, running organisations, representing governments, and educating new generations of children. Climate change will surely be at the top of our agenda.

But there is no time to waste. Earth is our only home. Al Gore /said in the movie/ “An Inconvenient Truth“: What is at stake is our ability to live on planet earth, to have a future as a civilization. It is your time to seize this issue and secure the future!” (1, 2, 3…)

So here we are, in Geneva for 3 days. We all have plenty of ideas and some experience that we bring from our different schools, our local communities and our home countries.

Take off last layer.

Let’s cool this place down!

On behalf of the 2014 FERMUN team, we wish you an exciting and productive conference! Thank you.