Hello everyone and welcome to this episode of the AfriNuke podcast.
This morning I am joined with Ia Ansut, an interesting nuclear young star as I would
say or call it because she has really turned an interesting kind of maybe I I would say
to the look to the people who are really interested in nuclear.
She is such a very young person from high school and her motivation and drive has brought
her to this COP27.
So we are going to have a session with her and she will share with us all around her
motivation and drive and what has brought her here and what she has gained so far and
her contribution.
Maybe a call to action and take home for you.
So listen up.
Hello, Ia, it's very nice to meet with you.
Please can you tell us a bit about you and maybe if I did not get the pronunciation of
your name very well feel free to correct me.
Thank you.
Yeah, so I'm Ia Ansut and I'm 17 years old and I'm here at COP27 with Nuclear for Climate
and essentially we're here to talk about my journey here.
Alright, thank you very much.
You've come all the way from Sweden and you are here in Egypt perhaps your first time
in this part of Africa.
I know you have been in Africa before I think you've been in Kenya or something.
Is that right?
Yeah, I was in Kenya before.
Alright, cool.
So you have the very good experience of Africa and there's a unique thing about your presence
here that actually struck me the most.
That's your age and your motivation at that age at the same time.
So I am way older than you but I still consider myself a youth.
I think it's more appropriate to call you the Gen Z youth, right?
So perhaps the category that fits you the most is what is really in vogue right now.
So and it's a very big challenge.
So please can you tell us a bit about your journey towards being so pro-nuclear and yeah,
all the way coming to COP27, please.
Yeah, so essentially I was active in Farisö Future in my hometown and we were 50 people
in my town in Farisö Future and only two of us were under the age of 18.
So it was me and a friend and half a year in to us starting this movement my friend
gets hospitalized for climate anxiety because all the other people in the movement, these
48 other people are really, really against all modern solutions like they want everyone
to live in a forest that's their deal.
And it was so unrealistic and it was so depressing really that I felt like there needed to be
a better way.
So I started researching and I found nuclear power and it solves so many issues at once.
Like it solves both the climate crisis but it also helps solve energy poverty and the
global inequality and it's just a good solution.
That's quite interesting.
Like I mean finding a solution at such a young age, like I mean the first place is to have
the motivation to go researching you know.
Many young lads in your category are very like up and doing like they are very unstable
I would say if that's the right word they will be more kind of more I mean able to doing
something maybe into like that will make them either in art or something more actively
engaging I would say not something as boring as research.
So it's quite interesting and motivating at the same time to find you go through from
the forestry group to finding nuclear to be a solution for climate in that regard.
So coming to COP 27 like how was it for you like what is your motivation what's really
like was an uppermost in your mind towards coming to COP 27 and do you think you have
been satisfied so far have you made enough contribution as you expected and are you
hoping for something like tell us.
So primarily my motivations to come to COP were two felt like first I really I was just
really like talking about nuclear power and this is a great opportunity to do it but beyond
that I also feel like it's really important to have youth voices represented because like
a lot of the people that are saying they are youth voices are often the people that do
actually have power they're 30 or even older than that at some time and it's like you are
already an active part in the political system in a way that kids aren't and I forget that
puts such a disadvantage I feel like it's really important to have that voice and like
make it clear and since I live in the global north I have an opportunity that most other
kids don't to be here and I feel like it's really important for me to take that opportunity
and do the best with this.
Alright that's very good you know when you talked about the opportunity being in the
global north a lot of young stars in the global south and Africa especially may not have or
even though they have the motivation to come to a place like this they may not have the
the enablement or the funds kind of to come here but those in the global north are kind
of enabled somehow but finding motivation and a drive in nuclear it's a bit boring because
it's kind of I don't know some people think it's too slow or something like that and not
too adaptable for young people to like or something like that it's not as like shiny
and glistening as would want to attract the young stars in your category so it's quite
interesting to see that you found motivation enough to bring you to this place so my kind
of curiosity is this do you think that you can get more people like you to join your
like people in your category maybe in your school or something like that maybe that will
be interested in this kind of idea or motivation you have for nuclear and do you have any plans
like do you have anything like a school club or group that you want to put together maybe
to further your maybe your drive in this regard absolutely I think the nuclear power and the
mission behind that is one of the main steps in solving the climate apathy and the feeling
of nothing will solve itself and we're screwed but a lot of I feel like a lot of people in
my generation have and I think nuclear is a really important step in solving that so
and I'm kind of trying to start a youth group for the Swedish eco modernists but I'm also
trying to make the youth that I'm already in become pro nuclear that's very interesting
you know sometimes it makes it doesn't make much sense to go from a new group when there
is already existing one that can help you propagate your idea so it's quite interesting
that and they are called eco modernist group you want to form is a very good one to have
a section of heating your country so yeah keep up in that great job the global population
is rising and 60% of the population in sub-saharan Africa are youths and they are not just grown
up youths but really young ones like from age 25 downwards so this kind of gives a very
good twist and the statistics are in the favor of the young people so when we can catch these
people young I think it gives a very good impact also propagating a very good solution
for climate and I would like to kind of maybe hear from you like being in this category
of people who is the who are they hope for the future like like in the next 20 30 years
you'll be still very active in your if nothing unfortunate happens and I hope I mean you'll
be the people that's like the world is looking up to to bring the viable solution to our
climate so do you have any new idea kind of that you hope if the leaders of thought or
nations or leaders of organizations maybe hear from you you think they will okay you
want them to act in a particular way maybe being a young star do you think you have any
need for them I feel like it's really important that as many people as possible are engaged
in civil society and that you are active I feel like the cornerstone of democracy is
functioning organization you can't have a functioning democracy without plenty of people
that are active in civil society democracy isn't just going to vote every four or five
years it's about taking an active part in society because you can't it's a part about
changing society and I feel like that's really important to note that like if you have any
ability to engage in solving any of the issues you're concerned about that's really important
because the more people are engaged in anything the more people will get engaged in climate
change specifically because you can't do any good change without first solving climate
change I was at the Denmark pavilion yesterday and the leader of the youth for climate group
for EU she's from Denmark as well I think her name is Nadia or something so she was
like to get the right solution you don't you need to go beyond public private partnership
and get into what is called the public private people partnership that's people elements
need to be included in the whole conversation and the people when you come to talk about
it that effects the real change in action are the young people and this is a very good
message for the organizations and those who want to actually bring action to the climate
drive as a whole to look at the people components and beyond the in addition to the people component
the young people's component so in my opinion I would say that to get the real needed results
for the whole climate action the people who are the real focus and should be engaged in
more and the young people and I'm very very happy that people as young as you are already
get engaged in this kind of drive and I hope that those in the position of leadership are
really I mean getting the right word and the right perspective as to how to focus rightly
to get the good results that is expected so now you're the copies already at its peak
and after a few days people will be heading back home do you have maybe any specific
lesson you've learned and maybe any kind of message you want to send to people and maybe
in Sweden or in Europe or in the global south and can you like any words you think your lessons
I feel like the most important thing I've learned here is that even the people that
are causing the harm think they're doing good and I feel that's really important to take
with you that there is no one or at least very very few people in the world that are
actively thinking that what they do is bad and they're going to keep doing it and I feel
that that's really important to take with you when you talk with people even the people
you view as your enemies they do not view themselves as that and there is so much cooperation
that can be had and even if they have different priorities than you you have to be able to
argue so that it looks like it prioritized for their priorities to be on that I think
engage engage engage engage you have to talk to people you have to be active you have to
do the work yourself you can't just go around being like the government will fix it because
the government won't fix it alright alright thank you so much here and it was a very
informative and exciting time with you like you really challenged me a lot about the youth
engagement and I hope that our listeners in that category will also be challenged as
well I hope to have more time with you thank you very much for listening to this episode
of afrinuk podcast stay tuned for more on this thank you