Children with a powerful message for world leaders ahead of COP26
Video from ITV News Reporter Tim Scott
'This is a climate emergency act now'.
That's just one of more than a hundred messages to world leaders about the climate crisis in a powerful video filmed across Liverpool.
Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram urged parents and leaders to watch and share the '100 Voices' campaign showing the real fears of our younger generation about the future of the planet.
It was filmed as world leaders prepare to meet for the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow - an event many describe as the last chance for the world to avoid climate catastrophe.
Children have often been the driving force for global change, spearheaded by the Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg who is in the UK and is expected to be in Glasgow this weekend.
In the video, 112 children and young people aged between 5 and 18-years-old from Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton, St Helens and Wirral were asked how they feel about climate change and environmental destruction.
Mayor Rotheram described the video as thought-provoking and said it sent a powerful message to everyone to act now to save the planet.
The Liverpool City Region Mayor said children and young people are at the centre of his climate thinking - with teenagers actively contributing to the city region Climate Partnership.
Mayor Rotheram said: “Climate change is the defining issue of our age. No longer a threat coming down the road, its effects are being felt right now, posing an existential threat to us all.
“This powerful video from local school children sends a clear message to the world’s leaders at COP26: there is no planet B."
In the video, children and young people urge leaders to act now and talk about their fears for the planet, deforestation and concerns about the burning of fossil fuels.
One says: 'Stop saying you’re going to do something and do something about it'. 'Start holding big business accountable' and 'don't listen to bad leaders who make bad decisions.'
Another adds 'After you’ve destroyed this planet we’ve got nowhere else to go.'
'We only have one planet and if we destroy it, there’s no second earth.'
Other contributions from the young people involved include:
One boy in a Liverpool FC strip pleads, 'We need to keep this world safe for young people'.
'Stop chopping down trees, we need them for oxygen'. 'Young people need a safe future', 'Stop deforestation and pollution, it's not too late to save the world'
The COP26 conference is taking place in Glasgow and begins on Sunday. The Presidents of China and Russia have said they are not planning to travel to Scotland to attend.
Mayor Rotherham says 'it is disappointing that some of the world leaders, that we need to get round that table to persuade them to do more, aren't going to be there in Glasgow."