What do you get when you mix ambition, young people and multilateralism? You get the United Nations (UN) Youth Economic and Social (ECOSOC) Forum, a melting pot of ideas, good intentions and at times poor execution. I had the opportunity to attend this year’s forum in April and got to understand the role of young people when it comes to political discourse and climate action.

People used to think that the Earth was the center of the solar system, until we learned that the sun is in fact at the center of the solar system. Making that transition in the human belief system was not easy because many people in positions of power were threatened by this new knowledge. The story is similar with climate change and other issues of human sustainability such as recognizing the rights of Mother Earth.

Transitioning from one career path to going back to graduate school and then trying to re-establish myself in another industry was terrifying. I felt enormous pressure to make the most of my internship.

With the European Union’s ratification of the Paris Agreement on October 5, the document reflecting worldwide effort on climate change will be legally binding next month.

I was sitting across from various diplomats of the United Nations (UN) member states in conference room 4 at the UN Headquarters in New York. With interpreters speaking rapidly in the background and everyone scanning through the volumes of notes sitting in front of them, the atmosphere was electric with buzz of policy ideas and back and forth discussions about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and targets.

In some ways, the world is getting better. It’s something that I tend to forget sometimes. Amid all the doom-ridden headlines and the pictures of polar bears treading water, literacy rates are improving, people are escaping extreme poverty and our path as a society has continually become more equal and less violent with an improved quality of life.