23-year-old Toronto filmmaker headed to UN climate summit to shoot documentary

Our planet is changing. So is our journalism. This story is part of a CBC News initiative entitled Our Changing Planet to show and explain the effects of climate change and what is being done about it.

Kasha Sequoia Slavner was only 15 when she persuaded her mother, Marla, to let her to take a year off high school to shoot a crowdfunded documentary.

The resulting film, The Sunrise Storyteller, was shot in part during a six-month trip the pair took through East Africa and Southeast Asia. It profiles young people working on creative solutions to global problems in their communities.

The independently-produced film has garnered 30 awards and been screened at more than 60 film festivals around the world. 

"I really wanted to highlight those stories of resilience and triumph over adversity because they were empowering to me as a ... young activist," said Slavner, now 23.

"I thought more people could hear stories like those."

Slavner is boarding a plane Wednesday to fly to Glasgow, Scotland to attend the COP26 United Nations Climate Change Conference on a mission to shoot a second independent documentary — 1.5 Degrees of Peace.

She'll join thousands of world leaders, politicians, climate activists, businesspeople and more, who are gathering there to hash out plans to reduce the world's greenhouse gas output and achieve net-zero emissions. The aim is to keep the rise in global temperatures below 1.5 C.

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.

The young filmmaker's second project combines her passions for the environment and peace activism.

"The concept ... is looking at the intrinsic links between peace and climate justice and how we can build bridges between these two movements because if we keep acting in silos, we're not going to be as ... productive as we want to with progressive climate action," she said.

Slavner pointed out that, according to the International Committee for the Red Cross, 14 of the 25 countries considered most vulnerable to the effects of climate change are also experiencing some form of violent conflict. 

While on the ground in Glasgow, Slavner said she plans to capture a behind-the-scenes look at young activists crafting demands for world leaders and organizing demonstrations, such as a global protest planned for Saturday. In addition, she hopes to interview people most affected by both climate change and conflict.

"I really want to create a space and a platform for young people who are seeing the effects of the climate crisis and the effects of conflict to share their own stories," said Slavner.