Activity 5

The Youth/Green ImPACT Project culminated in November 2021 with the holding of the last structured dialogue forum, which brought together political representatives and baccalaureate students from the Torrent dels Alous, L’Estatut and Duc de Montblanc schools. The activity was employed to weigh up the pros and cons, handle the importance of young people participating in structured dialogues and to learn about new green job opportunities.

Participants from the City Council were:

• Ana María Martínez Martínez, mayor
• Andrés Medrano Muñoz, city councilman for Environment, Energy Transition and Animal Welfare
• Víctor García Correas, councilman for Children and Education

Further participants included:

• Carlota Martí Niubó, head of media at the Directorate-General for Communication of the European Commission in Barcelona
• María Caso Escudero, president of Inakuwa, head of Institutional Relations and Ambassador of the Community of Madrid for Dialogue with Youth, and vice-president and advocacy director for Talent for the Future
• Francesc Xavier Roset Juan, doctor in Electronics and coordinator of the Industrial Electronics and Automatic Control Engineering degree at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC)

Scorecard for the project

During the last meeting of Youth/Green ImPACT, the Rubí mayor stressed that the project ‘has given us the opportunity to share and assess our experiences and good practices on energy matters and climate change, and has broadened our vision beyond our city. We have verified that we have young people who are committed to the present and future of the planet, with extremely clear ideas about the urgency of the green transition that is required by the administrations. For young people and through young people, municipalities can and must be agents of change.’
   

   
Carlota Martí Niubó, head of media of the Directorate-General for Communication of the European Commission in Barcelona, thanked the Rubí City Council for its hard work in involving the youngest citizens in making decisions about the environment. Martí Niubó set out the main arguments of the European Green Deal and repeated Europe’s desire to be the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. ‘Climate change is now one of citizens’ main concerns. We want to be a neutral continent and we know it won’t be easy. It requires sacrifices from both the administrations and citizens,’ she stated.
   

   
María Caso Escudero, president of Inakuwa, head of Institutional Relations and ambassador for the Community of Madrid for Dialogue with Youth, and vice-president and advocacy director for Talent for the Future, encouraged attending boys and girls to get actively involved in politics for rewriting history: ‘Voting every four years is essential, but it is not enough. Everything we do is political and we must be aware of that. What we buy, what we eat, how we get around… are all political decisions. And now is the time to decide on the world in which we want to live.’
   

New green jobs

In the second part of the meeting, new green jobs and citizen participation were handled, going into greater depth on the policies developed in Rubí in this field.

The councilman for Employability, Víctor García Correas, referred to the ecological transition as an opportunity to create jobs: ‘Having a time frame facing us that was unimaginable to our grandparents, with electric cars and an industrial model that is very different than the dirty industry of the last century. The ecological transition requires know-now, expertise and will create jobs.’ García Correas explained to the young men and women the qualification of Management of Energy Efficient Systems in Building Envelopes, which is offered by Rubí Forma (Rubí Training) as an example of future professions.
   

Francesc Xavier Roset Juan, doctor of Electronics and coordinator of the Industrial Electronics and Automatic Control Engineering degree at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), shared the educational options on energy resources at the UPC with attendees that let students ‘acquire expertise in conventional and renewable energies’.
   

During his talk, Andrés Medrano Muñoz insisted on the fact that it ‘is impossible to maintain the present energy expenditure and we must move from a linear model to another circular model’. The head of the Environment related climate change to the increase in social inequalities and reminded attendees that in Rubí, 38.1% of polluting gas emissions come from transport and 33.5%, from industry. Medrano detailed the main lines of the Municipal Ecological Transition Plan and called out to boys and girls to ‘be decisive and insistent, because you have the power to change things. You can make sure that the mistakes from the past are not repeated.’