At just 12 years old,
I witnessed the devastating impact
pollution was having on Iran,
my parents' home country.
On one of my summer visits,
I witnessed smog so heavy
it completely blanketed the air,
obscuring the stars I wanted
to trace out of the night sky.
I decided to read more
about climate change in Iran,
and I became increasingly alarmed,
particularly when I learned the fact
that temperatures in the Middle East
were rising more than twice
the global average.
Armed with this knowledge,
I decided to confront my relatives.
But I was shocked when they informed me
that they knew almost nothing
about climate change.
So I began to dig into the lack
of climate education in Iran,
and I found a study that read
only five percent of Iranian students
could properly explain
the greenhouse gas effect.
As I continued to scour the internet
for more information,
I began to connect the dots.
From what I could see,
there was a severe lack
of climate resources
available in Farsi,
Iran's native language.
Now, I was still determined
to educate my relatives,
so I decided to work with my mom
to translate climate resources into Farsi
so I could teach my aunts and uncles
about how climate-change-induced disasters
were impacting millions of Iranians.
As I watched my relatives
read my translations,
I had never been happier to see fear
plastered all over their faces --
(Laughter)
because reading my translations
had succeeded in convincing them
that climate change
was a real and pressing threat.
Now, my story is anecdotal.
But the fact that the vast majority
of scientific research
is only available in English
is a big problem when it comes
to climate change ...
(Applause)
because most people in the world
don't speak English.
In fact, 75 percent of them
do not speak English at all.
Yet, according to a 2012 study on Scopus,
the world's largest database
for peer-reviewed journals,
80 percent of articles
are written entirely in English.
Even the United Nations' IPCC report,
widely regarded as one of the most
renowned pieces of climate literature
in the world,
is only officially available
in the six UN languages:
Arabic, Chinese, English,
French, Russian and Spanish.
But these are languages
that account for less than half
of the world's speaking population.
Meaning, the majority
of people on our planet
are unable to understand
the documents and agreements
being issued by the world's highest
international political body.
This lack of easily accessible
documents and resources
leads to misinformation
and low public interest
around tackling issues
such as climate change.
In fact, just six years ago,
40 percent of adults in the world
had never heard of climate change.
Let me repeat that.
Two out of five adults
had never heard of climate change.
When looking at specific regions
where this problem lies,
we can see that multiple studies
have found, in Africa,
there was a severe lack
of climate education and curriculum
available in Africa’s Indigenous
and local languages.
This lack of information only hurts
those who need access to it the most.
In countries such as Japan
and the Philippines,
climate change has worsened typhoons
and disrupted agricultural industries.
In these and the other 10 countries
worst impacted by climate change,
only one, Canada,
is a majority English-speaking.
Languages remain a significant barrier
to the global transfer
of scientific knowledge --
be it through the press, through schools
or through political processes.
In an effort to close
the climate translation gap,
I decided to start Climate Cardinals,
and international youth-led nonprofit
working to make climate education
more accessible
to those who don't speak English.
We work with over 8,000
bilingual student volunteers
who translate climate information
in exchange for community service hours.
In just over a year,
we've translated hundreds of thousands
of words of climate information
into over 100 languages,
including Yoruba, Somali,
Swahili and Gujarati.
If a ragtag group of teenagers
that congregate through social media
can do this work,
imagine the impact
that a concentrated effort
by governments, scientists
and policymakers would have.
Groups of people
that are being disproportionately
affected by climate change
deserve to have access
to the resources they need
to make sense of these disasters
that are destroying their communities.
(Cheers and applause)
The more people are informed
about the climate crisis,
the greater chance we have to coordinate
collective efforts in protection
of the future of our planet.
Because every single person in the world,
every single person in this room,
has the power to further climate action.
So we must engage people
from every country,
young and old,
to join the fight for climate justice.
English cannot be the barrier to entry.
Thank you.
(Cheers and applause)