If one of the next big ideas on how to deal with climate change, poor air quality, too much waste, and loss of biodiversity comes from Cape Town, don’t be surprised.

For the past decade, the City of Cape Town has run an annual programme aimed at helping the city’s young people understand the challenging environmental issues facing our world and to devise positive, working solutions on a local community level.

Today, Cape Town’s Youth Environmental School (YES) programme is one of the country’s largest environmental education initiatives and the Youth Conference on Sustainable Development forms part of this programme. The conference is open to all high schools in the Cape Town metropolitan area.

The 2009 conference programme kicks off on 18 February with introductory workshops for teachers and other service providers. These will be followed in March by workshops where schools and partners meet and team up.

In August, the City will host a series of ‘mini’ conferences where learners will present their projects; the best six to eight of which will then be presented at the annual Youth Conference on Sustainable Development on 22 August in the Council Chamber at Cape Town’s Civic Centre.

The conference, which also provides a platform for discussion and allows young people to communicate their concerns about sustainability issues to City officials, forms part of the City’s commitment to the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development.

The YES programme also includes other events, held in conjunction with the many environment-focused activities throughout the year, including Wetlands Day, Water Week, Marine Week, Arbor Day, Heritage Day, Tourism Day and World Aids Day.

Instead of merely highlighting problems, the programme asks learners to develop positive solutions. Here are just a few of the ideas presented at the conference last year under the theme “Smart Living”:

Learners at Bishops Diocesan College, Rondebosch, analysed energy use at the school and proposed a car-pool system for parents using a GPS to map routes, and the use of solar laptop chargers. The learners have also reduced their paper use through an on-line syllabus and electronic work.

Macassar High School learners, concerned about local sand mining activities that may affect biodiversity, set up a programme to monitor indicator species.

Learners from Mondale High School, Mitchells Plain, ran a waste audit in 120 households and helped raise awareness of how to recycle organic household waste through composting, worm farms and organic vegetable gardens.

The theme for this year’s conference is Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, with the sub-themes biodiversity, water, energy and waste.

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