‘I’ve not been seeing the sun much this summer,’ says Susan Nakyung Lee. Speaking to me via online video chat from Seoul, the remarkably chirpy Nakyung Lee is about to start her work day, despite it being 8.00pm there. As part of the core team behind Global Assembly – an ambitious project that hopes to give ordinary people a voice at this year’s UN climate conference – the 20-year-old has taken a semester off her political science and sociology studies in the US, and has been working nights for months to synchronize with her colleagues on Central European and Central African time zones.
Global Assembly has brought together 100 people from all over the world as a ‘snapshot’ of the global population based on age, gender, region educational level and attitude towards climate change. Since the beginning of October, this ‘core assembly’ has been discussing climate change and the ecological crisis through online meetings. They will participate in the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), which begins in Glasgow on 31 October – ‘clap back’ to the conference and present their reflections and collectively agreed principles. The assembly will continue to meet beyond the end of COP26 on 12 November, until December.
