LCOY stands for Local Conference of Youth, an initiative of YOUNGO, the official youth and children NGOs constituency of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). YOUNGO is a volunteer-run non-hierarchical consensus-based organisation comprising a membership of 200+ youth-led and youth-focused NGOs, with around 6000+ individuals who work, study and campaign in the field of climate change and environmental sustainability. It is also known as the International Youth Climate Movement (IYCM).

 

Once a year, YOUNGO organises the Global Conference of Youth (COY), which takes place right before the UNFCCC’s Conference of Parties (COP), the UN’s annual international climate negotiations. During COY, youth from across the world produce common positions according to the different themes and issues discussed at COP. They strategize how they can effectively impact the UN climate processes and they empower each other through networking, training, and knowledge-sharing. Youth also engage in a variety of activist and campaigning work by hosting and participating in workshops, seminars and artivism sessions.

 

In 2014, YOUNGO began to host Local COYs (LCOYs) in countries and regions all over the world as local versions of COY. LCOYs were created to enable youth to participate in YOUNGO without requiring travel to the Global COY. At LCOYs, youth are organised as part of national and regional movements: they train and learn from each other, they develop positions on national and international policy issues, and they benefit from a global youth network made up of YOUNGO members and LCOY participants. In 2018 alone there were 20 different LCOYs hosted by youth all around the world.