Serena Bashal (United Kingdom) serves as an international UN Youth Volunteer Adolescent and Youth Environmental Engagement Coordinator with the East Asia and Pacific Regional Office (EAPRO) of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). She volunteered in civic climate action spaces for several years, with youth organizations and youth-led networks to UN agencies, before kick-starting her UN volunteering journey in August 2022.

Africa has been identified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as the continent most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Ecosystems are already being affected and future impacts could be substantial. East and Southern Africa has been experiencing more frequent extreme weather events and changing rainfall patterns, leading to droughts in some areas and flooding in others. The region’s population is highly dependent on rain-fed agriculture, making it particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, including potential effects on food security.

UN Climate Change, in collaboration with United Nations Volunteers (UNV), is conducting an ambitious and innovative campaign to mobilize over 650 volunteers to assist in the delivery of this year’s conference. The call for volunteers has attracted a flood of interest. Since registration opened on Monday 18 September, over 6,000 applications have been submitted. This is the first time that volunteerism has been integrated into the planning and delivery of UN climate conferences on such a large scale.