Dear Sir,

On behalf of the 2023 Bermuda Youth Delegation, I ask for the kind assistance of your platform in highlighting the work being done by Bermudian youth on the global stage — crucially for both global and local benefit and innovation. Our 2023 delegation comprises six determined, enterprising, caring and forward-thinking Bermudian youth who share concern for the state of our present and our future, and have passion for promoting and constructing a better future for all of us at home in Bermuda and abroad.

We are in the United Arab Emirates at the 28th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the world’s premier international treaty assessing and preventing dangerous impacts on our shared global climate and ecosystem to conserve and protect the Earth’s environment and allow for sustainable economic growth and continued human flourishing.

This group has coalesced around the opportunity provided to Noelle Young, Bermuda’s first female youth delegate of Younga, a “young activists” branch of BridgingTheGap ventures, a global organisation that seeks to foster the inclusion of underrepresented youth groups in global decision-making efforts and world affairs. It is an organisation that facilitates and supports the inclusion of Bermuda’s youth in the global decision-making process at COP28, and provides the opportunity for them to travel and participate in international networking, forums and panel discussions, project development, resource gathering and collaborative creation. It is crucial that we recognise and pay respect to those in our community who extend opportunity and open doors for one another, and endeavour to return the favour and follow in turn by paying said opportunities forward.

This rare opportunity has come at a critical time when the effects and importance of climate change, which were long warned about by the international scientific community, policymakers, social activists, Indigenous communities and a swathe of our wider human family, are being profoundly felt across the globe in a variety of destructive and destabilising ways. A destabilised climate system, among other devastating impacts, has been felt locally in Bermuda in 2023’s record-breaking rainfall levels and progressive price inflation on certain food items, the production of which has been negatively affected by progressively more severe weather and adverse climate conditions across the world. The extreme and destabilising impacts of climate change pose a clear and severe threat to our country and community — that cannot be denied, distracted from, or ignored any longer.

It is therefore long since time for Bermuda to deeply engage with this global issue, and to express our leadership in this space to envision and develop a better and more prosperous coexistence with the Earth. We must frame and design this necessary change around those values held true to Bermuda — of love and respect for our neighbours, and protection of one another for our community’s shared benefit and happiness.

The 2023 Bermuda Youth Delegates are organised and financially supported independently and apolitically, paying out of pocket and receiving their essential charitable support from the generosity of the Bermudian community, and with the necessary regulated charitable framework for donation received through a local registered charity which at this time will remain anonymous. It is the intention of this delegate group to not only participate and accrue benefit for themselves for development for Bermuda, but to additionally launch a “Bermuda Youth Delegates” organisation to extend this opportunity to other young Bermudians who wish to engage and participate in the construction of a better future for Bermuda through collaborative action and engagement with such global efforts as COP28.

The group’s new website and contact information can be found at bermudayouthdelegates.com, and can be contacted via e-mail at youthofbermuda@gmail.com. We welcome and encourage our community’s engagement and partnership in our collective efforts to safeguard and improve our country, and invite all interested parties, groups and individuals at home in Bermuda, and across the global community, to participate in this most crucial effort to safeguard one another and protect our shared future.

We as a collective, and I as a part of it, have further word and discussion to share with you and look forward to the productive and prosperous results we are determined to produce with the support and collaboration of our Bermudian community for our shared Bermudian nation’s benefit.

WILLIAM CAMPBELL

Smith’s