FAIRHOPE, Ala. — While other college students headed home for Thanksgiving this year, Brinkley Hutchings packed her suitcase and flew to Denmark as a youth representative for Greenpeace USA at the United Nations convention on climate change in Copenhagen.World leaders from nearly 150 nations have gathered for the past 10 days at climate talks in Denmark that conclude this Friday, seeking to agree on a multilateral global accord on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

“President Obama needs to hear young voices as he and other world leaders decide the future of our planet,” said Hutchings, according to a news release issued by EcoSolutions Inc., an environmental consulting firm located in Montrose.

“If they don’t solve global warming now, it is our generation that will have to face serious consequences.”

Hutchings, 20, a resident of Montrose and student at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, was the only youth delegate selected from the United States to represent Greenpeace USA in Copenhagen, and one of only five chosen globally, according to the news release.

As of press time, President Barack Obama was scheduled to attend the last day of the convention, and a U.S. congressional delegation was expected to attend during the week, including several Republicans who have disputed the science behind global warming.

“The movement for climate justice is one of the biggest and most dynamic movements in history,” Hutchings said. “Science demands bold action now, and our job in Copenhagen has been to remind our leaders that we stand behind the science and are not going away.”

Hutchings said she learned about environmental issues from growing up in Montrose where her father, Tom Hutchings, is owner of EcoSolutions.

“I was at his side handing out clean water brochures and cleaning up beaches before I entered grade school,” she said, according to a grant application for financial assistance she filed with the Environmental Protection Agency.

Her interest in environmental issues continued as leader of an environmental club in high school and as current leader of a college environmental group, “where I work with students, faculty, local nonprofits and community members to encourage them to be proactive in creating a clean energy future.”

Hutchings has led grassroots lobbying efforts and trainings and organized large community gatherings, citizen action meetings and town forums to address environmental and social impact of local polluting industries, according to the application.

  “Here in Copenhagen and at school in Wilmington, I’ve seen students organize and unite to demand change,” Hutchings said. “The youth feel this crisis more deeply than anyone because it’s our future — our jobs, our environment, our potential. So, being in Copenhagen is a huge opportunity for me.”

In Copenhagen, Hutchings has joined youth leaders from over a dozen other nations, from the Pacific islands to Brazil to France, according to the news release.

“I am so very proud of her,” Tom Hutchings said.