The world’s largest global climate event, Climate Week NYC, kicks off Monday — highlighting the importance of climate equity. 

Sophia Kianni, founder and executive director of Climate Cardinals, joined NY1’s Dean Meminger to discuss the need for worldwide change and why the topic should be discussed in all languages.

“I learned climate change was disproportionately impacting the Middle East,” she said, adding that she wanted to talk to her family in Iran about the issue. “And I was shocked when they told me that they didn’t know anything about climate change. And I realized it was because there was a lack of literature in Farsi, which is their native language.”

Kianni began working with her mother to translate resources into Farsi, which sparked her idea of creating Climate Cardinals. The nonprofit consists of 8,000 volunteers in over 40 countries to translate climate information to over 100 languages.  

As one of the speakers for Climate Week NYC, she believes it’s a way to gather influential individuals within the climate space and try to reach out to the youth agenda.

Kianni did a TedTalk earlier this year to talk about how language shouldn’t be a barrier for climate change education.

When asked if she thinks the younger generation is more involved in climate change, she said yes because they’ve experienced the impact. 

“We are experiencing three times as many climate change-induced weather disasters as our grandparents,” Kianni said. “As climate change education becomes better, younger people now understand that this is the most urgent issue facing our generation and we’re increasingly looking for ways to get involved so that we can combat the issue.”