This past weekend was the Conference of Youth (COY). A few hundred of us who are here to attend the UNFCC COP15 gathered on Saturday and Sunday to prepare ourselves for one of the most important events in climate history.
I arrived in the city of Copenhagen on Friday morning, and instead of being smart and taking it easy, I spent the day scurrying about doing errands and meeting the rest of the SustainUS Agents of Change. By 8:00pm Denmark time, I was exhausted. I had also agreed to wake up even earlier the next day to help register people for COY.
Waking up wasn’t difficult, and once I got to the building and met the 20 or so people who were there early as well, I was instantly energized. The buzz of excitement that was pulsing through these young people from basically all nations of the world was INCREDIBLE. Not to mention that fact that since I was helping to register, I was seeing all my friends whom I hadn’t seen since my last UNFCCC conference in June in Germany.
Joshua Kahn Russell from Rainforest Action Network was there to give all of us a warmup. When the conference started, we had to run around the room and every 3 seconds stop and hug the person nearest to us. It just amazed me! The way we all instantly bonded over the fight for climate justice. At the same time, it made me think a lot about how different it was than the actual UN negotiations. At my last UNFCCC conference, I’d never once seen a negotiator from the USA run up and hug a negotiator from Norway (substitute any countries you’d like here).
Throughout the weekend, I went to numerous workshops to learn more details about the UNFCCC process, how to organize a movement, and even activism art. Each time, I witness a whole room of people, sometimes no one being from the same country as another, work and learn together.
So, why is it that young people have no problem making decisions together quickly and in a civilized manner and yet adults representing entire countries cannot achieve this? Its greed, in my opinion, and the outcome of COP15 is up to the youth and countries that care more about actual survival than money. Thankfully, Sunday evening as I felt the willpower of now over 500 of us youth, I couldn’t help but think there is no way we could fail in making this happen.
Nice to hear about everything! Good work and keep on going!
April,
Good of you to be there. If I was still teaching Global Issues, I would invite all of my students to read your blog. Be careful.