Page 22 - FerMUN 2020 - Futurecasters Global Young Visionaries Summit, 8th-10th January 2020

Climate change and environmental issues
Mr Arthur Lassagne, student from France

As a student involved in fighting climate change, I would simply like to remind you of the
importance of this fight, as well as of the initiatives that we as FerMUN - high school students
and future citizens of the world, have developed in the hopes of saving our planet.

Unfortunately, in the last 60 years or so, since the beginning of mass industrial plastic production,

8.3 billion tons of plastic have been piling up around the world. A large part of this waste now
threatens an inconceivable number of species. Indeed, the 8th continent - a mass of plastic
waste - now floats in the Pacific. There is an urgent need to preserve this planet's biodiversity

by reducing this overwhelming wastage to ensure a cleaner, healthier world for us and for
future generations.

It is with this aim in mind that the whole of FerMUN has been working to provide concrete and
easily achievable solutions. In reflecting on our own behaviour, we realised that the use of
plastic cups at previous conferences was an unnecessary waste. FerMUN therefore put forth

the following idea: removing these cups in favor of a reusable water bottle. This solution is very
concrete, and we are pleased that FerMUN and our NGO partner, the European Water Project
offers you a reusable water bottle to contribute to the reduction of single-use waste and the

protection of the environment.

Before Stuart Rapoport, president of European Water Project, speaks, a word about the origins
of this NGO. In France, there was recently a project to bottle 400 million PET plastic water bottles
for Asia. Stuart Rapoport got involved with a local association which, together with other

associations and the support of many high school students in the region, stopped the project.
It was during this struggle that Stuart became aware of the enormous scale of the plastics
problem and decided to become more involved by setting up this NGO, known as the

European Water Project. To fight against single-use plastic bottles, they developed an
application that redirects users to the nearest source of drinking water so that they can refill
their bottles.

Questions & Answers

§ Jules Morel from Lycée Ferney Voltaire, France asked
“What is the UN’s vision regarding the movement that started with Greta Thunberg, the
"Fridays For Future" climate strikes?”

M Fabrizio Hochschild answered

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