ReImagine Advocacy

The Jamaica Climate Change Youth Council Advocacy strategy is guided by the principles of the ReImagine Advocacy Campaign:

• R-eformation towards transformation
• E-quity
• I-nnovation
• M-otivation
• A-action and accountability
• G-overnance
• I-nclusion
• N-ation
• E-ducation and Engagement

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Defend the Deep Campaign

The deep sea is at serious risk. Mining companies want to dig up the ocean floor and extract minerals they claim are needed for electric vehicles and batteries.

The Ocean is the planet’s last frontier for climate change. It is a huge carbon sink, helps with climate regulation and provides the majority of our oxygen. Ocean threats have brought this very important ecosystem to the verge of collapse. Deep Sea Mining poses a further potential threat amid the current climate crisis. As citizens of the host country for the International Seabed Authority (ISA), Jamaicans have the unique opportunity to represent the voice of the people in these important decisions. 

The Jamaica Climate Change Youth Council has taken on the mantle of taking a stand against Mining in the Deep Ocean by engaging in an educational campaign including panel discussions, training sessions, social events and social media campaigns, in addition to our on-the-ground efforts in demonstrating outside the ISA at each of their international assembly meetings where this detrimental extractive industry is being negotiated.

Our Aims for our advocacy are as below:

• Enforce the right to repair, which would establish manufacturing standards across electronics manufacturers and extend the overall lifespan of devices by making them easier to repair
  
• Establish a circular economy whereby rare earth metals can be extracted from existing devices and upcycled from humanity’s colossal amount of e-waste
  
• Address the root causes of our dependence on rare earth metals by addressing automobile-centric infrastructure in urban areas
  
• Establish firm environmental standards and accountability measures to hold mining companies accountable
  
• Revise the myth that deploying and manufacturing green-tech on a mass scale is in some way in keeping with our planetary boundaries or that it can solve the ecological crisis, rather than simply uphold current patterns of overconsumption 

Ultimately, the primary goal is to call for a moratorium on Deep Sea Mining that will require the ISA to wait for the science to catch up to industry desires (in a few decades) as presently we do not have enough data to mine the deep sea.