Climate Change Should Be Our Focus, says Alejandro Toledo

The former President of Peru was in attendance at the One Young World Environment Summit in Arizona last week. Alejandro Toledo criticized US Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s short-termist concerns on immigration when he addressed hundreds of young people from countries across the globe. Toledo also urged those in attendance to take control of the climate change crisis themselves.

Alejandro Toledo, the former President of Peru, said: “In 2050, the wars will not be about oil or religious fanaticism, or about building big fat walls to prevent people from coming into your countries. The wars will be about the scarcity of clean water to drink. The wars will be about food scarcity. The wars will be about environment adversity.

“Today the world has a crisis of leadership. That means there’s no sense of mission, and no sense of direction. Our leaders need to realise it is not about paying lip service to win the next election, but about making a better world for our future generations. We need more leadership and less politics. 

“The time has come to empower the youth of the world who cannot be passive observers of what is happening around them – all of you must act now. If you don’t lead and take charge of your own lives, someone else will take charge – and they might be an ignorant person. I think that is the soul of the One Young World initiative.” 

One Young World is a unique platform for young leaders to network with peers from every country and sector, sharing ideas to develop solutions to address urgent global issues. The annual summit attended by 1,300 delegates aged 18-30 from 196 countries. Over 8.9 million people have been impacted by the work of One Young World Ambassadors since 2010, with 2.7 million being impacted in 2015.