'We're standing on an edge': Sudbury mother and daughter attending COP26 climate change conference
This is the fourth COP meeting for Orlando, while it's the first for Mathur, now a well-known activist
The much anticipated COP26 conference on climate change is underway in Glasgow, Scotland and among those working to find a solution to global warming is a 14-year-old from Sudbury.
Sophia Mathur has made national headlines by organizing Fridays for Future protests and has quickly become a well-known climate activist.
"You really don't know what they're going to say, you really don't know what the outcome is going to be of this. You don't want it to be just words. I really hope that something comes out of this and we go on track to a livable future," says the Grade 9 student at Lo-Ellen Park Secondary School.
"Personally, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to have to do activism any more. It's not my job. It's politicians and it's adults' jobs."
One of the adults at the conference is Sophia's mother Cathy Orlando.
The program manager with Citizens Climate International, this is the fourth time Orlando has attended a COP meeting.
The Conference of Parties (COP), as it's known, meets every year and is the global decision-making body set up in the early 1990s to implement the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and subsequent climate agreements.
"Never did I imagine I would be attending a Conference of the Parties with my daughter."
"I want her to share what she needs to share. She's got something to say for sure. I don't know what it is," Orlando says with a laugh.
Many are saying this conference could be the last chance to turn things around before the world becomes a very different place and Orlando says she feels that urgency going into the talks.
"I mean, we're standing on an edge. This is a last chance COP. But nothing is black and white. And things will change. They have to. We can't do this to the atmosphere," she says.
"There's going to be disappointments and there's going to be happy moments."
Mathur says she's excited to hear what the politicians have to say and put pressure on those shying away from taking real action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
She says it's important for world leaders to hear from young people at COP26 which can have "more impact than another adult telling them that they want climate action."
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