Matt Youde reflects on the discussions about climate change and the Millennium Development Goals which took place at the Politics of Poverty event on 9 November 2010...

It is good to live in a country where there are plenty of opportunities to engage with important issues and causes in a meaningful way. It is even better that our democratic society affords us the freedom to engage in deep debate about the core issues that matter within the very chambers that policies and laws are discussed and written, policies and laws that can have a great impact on those issues we hold dear.

Such issues are international development and – tied up within that – climate change. It was, then, a good opportunity for me to attend a debate at the Houses of Parliament on these topics. Under the gaze of the portraits and busts of legislators of old, reformers and radicals amongst them, we gathered in a committee room; students, activists, politicians, young people from different faith backgrounds, representatives of volunteering, international development and enterprise, all united for justice and equality.

I was invited to attend by MADE in Europe, an organisation I have known for a while now (they gave me the opportunity last year to go to the Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen). This is, I like to think, a perfect vignette of the sort of partnerships and levels of cooperation the world really needs to secure in order to trigger real and lasting positive change; I am a Christian, MADE in Europe is a Muslim organisation and yet I always feel that I am a member of their network of young people.

The speakers at the debate were Mark Lazarowicz, Labour MP and part of the Shadow Team for International Development, Deborah Doane from the World Development Movement and Daniel Vockins from the 10:10 Initiative. It was a great shame that the confirmed representative from the Government was not able to attend as this would have been a good opportunity to air passionate but informed opinions on these issues to someone with the power to implement them. As it happened, the debate functioned more as a cafe of ideas, which is to say that it was still highly interesting and very useful.

We discussed the Millennium Development Goals, the International Development Budget and the potential for a “Green Recovery” for the UK’s economy. Of particular urgency was the message that funding for preventing and mitigating climate change should not be sucked out of the development budget. While the two issues are interconnected, climate change is an issue that also significantly affects developed countries and should thus receive additional investment, especially if the strategy might focus on developing a green economy for our country, enabling truly beneficial technology transfer to developing countries and complimenting the effects of the development budget.

These are not new arguments, but the international community has been dragging its heels on this issue for a while now. The sense of impatience and frustration in the room was very evident. Whether it is the spectre of climate change, which has been eclipsed by the economic meltdown, or funding development and poverty reduction, which has been refocused on securing the volatile countries that foster terrorist movements, World governments have slipped in their adherence to the moral principles that are supposed to underlie the purposes of international cooperation. Perhaps, as was discussed at this debate, the culture that produced the number crunching Millennium Development Goals needs to be reconsidered. Perhaps we need to look at the underlying causes of the problems our world faces, causes such as a bloated and unjust global economic system, rather than set targets. Development cannot be measured by numbers alone. A culture needs to shift to allow progress to occur.

So the question is left hanging; how can we begin to change that culture? It seems a rather hefty burden to bear and as a young person I am mindful that it is the responsibility of my generation to come up with an answer. A suggestion was teased out of the meeting, that we should never underestimate the influence society has on government and that our continued and increased participation in the processes that invite dialogue between government and society is one way to keep these issues on the agenda and demand a change in approach, if that is what is deemed as required.

So the meeting marked not the end of the road, but the beginning of one. We have a long way to go, but there are a lot of people who care and a lot of people who do great work towards creating a fairer and more just world. Many of these people were in this meeting. I think that as long as such opportunities for dialogue and cooperation exist, there is hope.

Matthew Youde is 22, lives in London and is the Youth Coordinator for the United Religions Initiative, a global network of interfaith groups working for daily and enduring interfaith cooperation  and understanding. He is also the Treasurer for the Young Christian Workers, a Catholic Movement that aims to train young people in the UK to be the agents of change in their lives, the lives of others and in their communities.