Day 9 & 10 - The End

The last two days of my time in Cancun were official days off, that consisted of sleeping in, sightseeing around Cancun downtown and snorkeling in the sparkling sapphire ocean! For one of our delegates, it was her first time in the ocean, so it was pretty special time!!

But there were a few formal things left to do before the long flight home. On the Saturday evening we went back to Moon Palace to see the SBI session where the decision regarding Article 6 that was reached in the Contact group the day before was discussed!

We managed to get a hold of the Chair of the SBI before the session and he agreed to give out the Gold Stars!!  Here is a link to a YouTube clip showing what happened!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_N9vzeWCrM

We were just so excited and so proud! It was a great way to end my time at COP16. I was so lucky to go to the conference as it was a fantastic chance to see how the international process works and just what progress is being made. Too often people feel disconnected to the international process – what impact could I possibly have on such a HUGE endeavour. However being a youth delegate as part of WAGGGS showed me that even an ordinary Guides Leader like me can make a difference to the decisions that our governments make!

Being in Mexico was awesome – it has really boosted my capacity as a Girl Guide to be the change that I want to see in the world – and now I can’t wait to share it with every Girl Guide in Australia!! 

Some of the Article 6 Working Group and our Gold Stars!!

The Chair of the SBI handing out our Gold Stars!!

Day 8 - Article 6

Day 8 was all about Article 6 – just a reminder about what Article 6 is; Article 6 makes up a small but very important section in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It talks about the need to combat climate change through:

• education
• training
• raising public awareness
• encouraging public participation
• improving public access to information
• international cooperation

Katie Scales, one of the WAGGGS delegates wrote a great summary of the whole Article 6 story – so I’ll leave it in her words...

What happened before COP 16?

The New Delhi Work Programme (NDWP), 2002 - 2007: recommends integrating Article 6 activities in existing climate change programmes and strategies. 

Amended New Delhi Work Programme (aNDWP), 2007 - 2012: recommends implementing national Article 6 'plans of action'. It also suggests the inclusion of population groups such as youth. 

Mid-Term review and draft conclusions from the Subsidiary Board for Implementation (SBI), 2010: Largely thanks to active lobbying by Youth Non-governmental (YOUNGO) representatives, Parties, Inter-governmental Organisations (IGOs) and observers were asked for submissions to feed into the SBI's report on ‘essential needs for, potential gaps in, barriers to, and progress in the implementation of the aNDWP.' WAGGGS, together with the European Youth Forum (YFJ), handed in a submission!

The main focus points of WAGGGS' submission included:

• recognition of youth as important stakeholders in the implementation of Article 6
• recognition of non-formal education (for example peer education, learning by doing, experiential learning) as an effective method to deliver climate change education
• guaranteeing equal access to education for girls and boys 
• promotion of youth delegates in official government delegations
• ensuring funding is available for Article 6 activities 

What happened at COP 16?

Step One: All submissions (including the one from WAGGGS!) were put together by the UNFCCC Secretariat into a 'Synthesis Report', which was released shortly before COP 16 started. It was really exciting to see that a lot of our points had found their way into the Synthesis Report.

Step Two: We then had to see what the SBI would make of the Synthesis Report. Originally they planned to have informal meetings (where NGOs would be most likely unable to attend), to discuss the Report and propose conclusions. Lesotho however, speaking on behalf of the G77 negotiating group, managed to turn the informal meetings into one Contact Group (where NGOs are allowed). The aim then became to agree on a decision that would be put forward to the SBI and later to COP. This was a great success as a decision is far more powerful than a conclusion.

Step Three: There was great concern that it would not be possible to have a text for a decision put together and agreed upon within just 90 minutes of a Contact Group. So the YOUNGO Article 6 Policy Group, which WAGGGS is part of, spent a lot of time and effort lobbying parties to not only to include our main points in the text, but also to push for a quick discussion in the Contact Group. We approached the G77 and many individual G77 countries, the EU and several individual EU countries, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway among others. All in all we were very busy!

Step Four: The Contact Group took place on Friday, 3 December. At first, the discussions started very slowly, concentrating on just the introduction to the text. But there were almost 100 youth present in the room, all in the same blue T-shirts sporting the slogan: "You have been negotiating all my life. You cannot tell me you need more time."

This statement transformed the atmosphere in the room, and a willingness for compromise arose from all Parties. Not only that, but the final agreed text includes all the important points YOUNGO raised; youth as important stakeholders in training and participation, non-formal education, increase access to funding for Article 6, the gender perspective, and a lot more.

It was a really cool day – we were so excited! The Chair of the SBI said that if a decision was reached he would give out gold stars!! So on the night on Day 8, we went out and bought gold paper and spent the evening cutting out stars!!

Day 7 - YoFuGe Day

Well there is a HUGE gap between Day 6 and Day 7 but better late than never!! Day 7 was Young and Future Generations (YoFuGe) Day. YoFuGe Day is all about raising awareness about how the current negotiations are shaping the future of youth worldwide.

We celebrated this day with a lot of actions and side vents all over the two venues of the COP: Cancun Messe and Moon Palace. The first action of the day was a silent protest took place at the point were all the official country delegates are passing in the morning, to catch a shuttle bus to Moon Palace. We were standing in two rows wearing our blue Young and Future Generations Day t-shirts with a quote on the back saying: "You have been negotiating my whole life - you cannot tel me you need more time." This was said by a 17-year old gold from the Solomon Islands last year at COP 15.

Earlier this week we, the WAGGGS delegates, produced a video outlining an action song. The dance and song are simple and fun!! We asked our 10 million members worldwide to participate in the dance and song to raise awareness about climate change. We immediately had people pledge to dance with us from home!

Today, we facilitated an action with the other youth here at COP16 in Cancun, Mexico. We led the dance in two different locations: the Moon Palace and the Cancunmesse. The Moon Palace is where all of the negotiations take place during COP, so it was incredibly important for us to raise our voices there. The Cancunmesse is where all of the NGOs (and others) have information stands, as well as where side events take place. At 12 noon, the dance and song began. There was a lot of participation, a lot of media, and the energy reached the sky! It was fantastic!

In the afternoon when the actions were over, it was time to get back to the formal goings on of COP16. I attended a side event called: 'Living up to the education challenge of Article 6: Preparing children and young people for climate change'. It was designed to help share knowledge and best practices in climate change education, including formal and non-formal. Non-formal education covers things like learning by doing and peer education, like Girl Guides, whereas formal education is what you get at school. WAGGGS was one of the event organisers and two of our very own delegates were speakers, Miriam Otieno was the mediator and Katie Scales was on the panel that was taking questions!  Also on the panel, amongst others was Reuben Sessa from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation as well as Stephanie Hodge from the UNICEF.

The side event was a series of questions posed to the panellist about issues with delivering climate change education and why it is effective as part of the solution to the Climate change challenge with a focus on non-formal education. Many people spoke as well as the panellists such as one of the UNICEF Climate Ambassadors, Walter Periatt from Belize. Walter is 12 years old and he got up in front of a crowded room and gave a great speech about how education about climate change gives you the knowledge of what to expect and can help communities to adapt to and mitigate the impacts. Another speaker was Ana Lucia Mamani Espinal from Bolivia, who spoke about the potential stumbling blocks that you may come across when developing education programmes such as poor Internet availability in some countries – in Bolivia, people can pay $1 for an hour of Internet!

The side show really highlighted all the great education projects that are already in place, but it also highlighted that there is still a lot of work that needs doing to get education to as many people as possible especially in countries in the Global South.

The Silent Protest

Megan, Trine and Fatima doing the Climate Change Dance

Katie Scales at the Article 6 Side Event

 All in all it was a YoFuGe Day!

Day 6

Today was an early start. I needed to be at the Cancun Messe (It the hall where all the NGOs have their stalls) at 8am for the YOUNGO Spokes Council – and it takes an hour to get to Cancun Messe from Downtown, so we even had to skip dinner L YOUNGO which is the Youth Non government organisations, is the body that represent the Youth at COPs.  They provide a coordinating role for youth policy positions, actions and opinions. The daily spokes council is where representatives from each delegation meet to make decisions on behalf of YOUNGO and discuss the timetable of the day.

Today was my first chance to go to Spokes council and learn how it works. The way I see it is that the council is a mini version of the COP or the UN itself.  There are representatives from each organisation sitting on the ground in a circle with support members sitting behind them. Issues that need discussion and decisions, which today was mainly regarding actions, are raised with the group and votes are taken. There are several hand signals used at the council rather than using your voice. If you like or agree with what someone else is saying you twinkle your hands like you would for the actions to twinkle twinkle little star. If you don’t like it or you want to block an idea the you cross you arms over each other above you head, a bit like “No Deal” from deal or no deal. It’s a relatively democratic process, however it can get bogged down – a bit like

Straight after the spokes council was an Article 6 working group. Not sure if I’ve explained this yet but Article 6 of the UNFCCC is focused on education of climate change and making sure that countries educate citizens about climate change. WAGGGS as part of YOUNGO has a policy brief that we are trying to get included in a review of implementation of article 6. We are trying to get countries to agree to, amongst other things, acknowledging the role that non formal education has in educating on climate change as well as agree to proving girls and boys equal education in climate change. At the working group, we discussed how we were going to actually lobby countries and ask them to go further than just supporting our policy, but to ask them to make a decision by the end of the week, not just recommend that we make a decision! I was asked to approach the Australian delegation again with Bronwyn. We are meeting them tomorrow!!

Over lunch, I went to the IPCC side show which was outlining where the process is up to for assessment report 5. The first assessment report was released in 1990, so this is the 20^th year that the IPCC has been working to get the most assess the most up to date literature regarding the physical science, adaptation measures and mitigation measures for climate change. The most interesting thing additional to the report series time round is the use of a socio economic analysis to assess the effectiveness and usefulness of mitigation methods. This hasn’t really been done before but the IPCC so hopefully it will take into consideration traditionally marginalised groups such as indigenous people and women and show the impacts that some methods may have on them.

In the late afternoon, I was interviewed for US radio! They wanted to know what Girl Guides have to do with Climate Change action and what were hoping to achieve at the COP. Well, after four days on the job, I was able to give the reporter the full spiel – I added in so much detail that she actually asked me to make it simpler and only give her a few sentences!

The last thing of the day before I collapsed into bed was heading across town with some other lovely youth delegates to prepare of the actions or demonstrations that were planned to happened at the COP to celebrate “Youth and future generation day”, which is being held on 2^nd December. We picked up our t-shirts for the actions and chatted about what we were going to be doing the following day. You will have to wait until tomorrow to hear what we are going to be doing.  For those in Australia, you will have already taken part in youth and future generation day, hopefully 'doing the Climate Change dance in a public place to raise awareness!! Now tomorrow it’s our turn!!

Day 5

Bron and I with Australian Climate Change Ambassador Louise Hand!

On the 2^nd day of COP16, Bronwyn and I met with the Australian Ambassador for climate change, Louise Hand. We wanted to speak with her about the key messages of WAGGGS; that there needs to be greater emphasis on girls and young women in the UNFCCC and our policy position on Article 6 for the mid-term review.

We met Ambassador Hand just outside where the negotiations take place in Moon Palace. It turns out that she had been a Brownie and a Guide when she was young and that she still holds the record in her group for gaining the bookworm badge the fastest!!

We explained what WAGGGS is about & our role at COP16. We then explained what our position was for the review of Article 6. Our policy position, which is unified position of youth at COP16, asks for increased emphasis and funding for climate change education and information dissemination. The rationale behind our position is that through critical mass of civil society we will get the ambitious policies we need to tackle climate change.

We then asked whether Australia would support our position on article 6 and to ensure that they are included in the final conclusions of the SBI mid-term review expected to be finalised by the end of this week. Ambassador Hand agreed on the spot to our position and immediately asked that our document be taken to the Australian Article 6 delegate for inclusion in the discussions that were taking place. It was an amazing feeling – we had just influenced our Country to agree with our policy position! Now we are looking forward to see what the decisions are to see if we made a difference!

I spent the afternoon in a side event which was talking about best practice education programs for climate change in Caribbean countries. Countries represented were Peru, Honduras and Mexico. In Peru they have developed a complete curriculum module for school children in the mountainous regions to learn about how climate change might affect them.  They have so far managed to train 5000 teachers in the syllabus. That equates to 120 000 students having access to a teacher with climate change knowledge and in 2011 Peru is making climate change a compulsory subject for all students!

The session ended with a film clip from Jamaica that was used to teach youth about climate change! You should all check it out! It’s brilliant – and pretty funny too. Check it out here Jamacian Voices of Climate Change

Day 4

So today was the first official day of COP 16 – we were pretty excited! However our mood was slightly dampened by the DREADFUL traffic! It took us 2.5 hours to travel the distance it took us 40 mins to do on Saturday!! It was pretty awful! But once we were there and through the doors, we felt 100% better J

Luckily, a small group of us had gone ahead earlier to the COP to attend some early morning meeting, which meant that there were Girl Guides at the opening ceremony of COP16 – and one of them was Bronwyn, another Australian Girl Guide on the delegation! Go Australia!!!

Once we finally found our stall in the NGO pavilion, we set up and got ready to start telling anyone who would listen, why Girl Guides had in interest in Climate Change action and why it’s important that girls and young women are incorporated into decisions under the UNFCCC! Our stall is in a great location, right opposite the coffee shop, so everyone comes past and see what the Guides are doing. Many people are dropping by to say “Oh, I used to be a Guide!!” or “wow, it’s so great to see you here in uniform, you look great!!” So we had plenty of opportunities to practice our message!

The first official side show event after the opening event a series of talk of influential women from Mexico discussing the importance of including women in Climate change negotiations, adaptations and mitigations activities. There were Ministers, UN representatives and community leaders but the star speaker of the session was Margarita Zavala de Calderón, the first lady of Mexico and the President of the Consultative Council of Integral Family Development.

The speeches focused on the role that women in Mexico have already taken or can take in climate change adaption and mitigation actions. The speakers also stressed that gender needs to be mainstreamed in all international negotiations regarding climate change, in order to guarantee a fair, differentiated, democratic and inclusive process. They also recognised the important role that many Mexican women play in communities and changing habits and practices at a grass roots level.

Ms Zavala de Caldreon’s speech was excellent. Earlier during the other speeches, Ms Zavala noticed from sight that Girl Guides were in the audience. Her aid then quietly came up to us in the audience and wanted to know what countries we were from. Then in the opening lines of her speech, Ms Zavala thanked us for coming and mentioned that it was because of Girl Guides that she became interested in the environment! It was a fantastic feeling to be so singled out like that! Ms Zavala’s message was simple, women are vital to the process of taking action on climate change and cannot be overlooked anymore, for the sake of our planet it is time women were listened to and recognised as part of the solution. Her final words were powerful and clear: “We have to go through many paths to fight climate change; the diplomatic, scientific and human path. Women should be included in the all!”

After the speech, Ms Zavala gave one photo opportunity – and it was with us!! It was such an exciting day to start COP16, we are so lucky and honoured!!

But the day continued to get better – Bron and I  were interviewed by Triple J in Australia and we were on the news report on Tuesday Australian time! We are trying to get a copy of it, because we haven’t hear it! A few people heard it and facebooked us – we now feel slightly famous!!

The final highlight of the day was fossil of the day! The fossil of the day award is organised by the Climate Action Network (CAN). CAN regularly judge three ‘Fossil of The Day’ awards to the countries who perform the worst each day at negotiations for UN climate change conferences. The slightly sarcastic yet highly prestigious awards are accepted by youth representatives from that country. The Fossil of the Day award was first presented at the climate talks in 1999 in Bonn.

Girl Guides were part of the opening ceremony of the fossil of the day presentation for 2010. We performed a song and dance number to the Jurassic Park theme. The lyrics of the song were:

Fossil of the day, Fossil of the day

Who was bad, who was worse

Fossil of the day, Fossil of the day

All the blame, all the shame

Fossil of the day!!!

The dance was organised by the UK youth climate change council! There were flags and spirit fingers – it was really fun!!  Check out the following website – to see who the award was given to on the first day of COP16. http://www.fossiloftheday.com/ . We got some pictures, but I haven’t managed to get a hold of them yet – will post when I do! This award is going to be awarded everyday so keep an eye on the website and see who get named and shamed everyday!

It was quite  a first day!!!!

Our Stand at COP16 - Our boxes with promo material is still in customs so we have had to make do with hand made signs and posters



Awesome WAGGGS delegates with Margarita Zavala de Calderon 



Margarita Zavala de Calderón

Day 3

Hard at work on the last day of COY

Take Action Dance!



Us with Bill McKibben!!

 Today was the final day of COY. It started off with a plenary session, then we went into workshop sessions. I went to an introductory session on Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM) and carbon markets.  Just briefly, CDMs are defined in Article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol, which is an agreement linked to the UNFCCC. CDMs, allow a country with an emission-reduction target like the UK, to implement an emission-reduction project in a country without a emission-reduction target, like China.

This is meant to be a way to share clean technology with developing countries, while giving the developed country credit towards meeting this target. In theory, this is a really great idea, however at the workshop; reasons were given for why CDMs are not such a good idea in its current form. The main reason is that less emissions are cut overall – the developing country does reduce its emissions, but potentially no more than it was already going to i.e. it isn’t a real cut in overall emissions and developed countries are not changing their practices to be less carbon intensive.   We also spoke about the impact that CDMs can have on women and their livelihoods, especially when community consultation for the CDM project has not included women or taken into their views.

After this session I wanted to get further involved in the work that YOUNGO was doing on Article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol. So I went along to the Finance working group after lunch and listened in on the drafting of a position statement that stated YOUNGOs views on a potential Climate Change fund under the Kyoto Protocol. The fund was initially suggested by the International Monetary fund earlier in the year to help developed countries pay for the adaption and mitigation programs.  The finance working group was coming up with principles that we thought a Climate Fund should be based on; such as transparency, additionality and accountability. I raised the point that we need to have among principles, that the funding should target traditionally marginalised groups, which includes women and be delivered in a way that benefits them. We got part way through drafting the document and were going to finish it tomorrow so that we can deliver to the UNFCCC secretariat so youth’s voices can be heard.

The afternoon session was a talk from Bill McKibben. He is the founder of 350.org and has been advocating for climate change action since the 1980s.  He gave us a very inspiring talk about not just being another activist movement - but to be an organised, informed and integrated group that is active all the time, not just during a COP. After Bill’s talk I was really encouraged that the work I hope to do once I am back in Australia, educating Girl Guide Leaders about Climate Change so they help their girls and communities make a difference.  It can be my small part in the larger work being done be youth and Climate Change advocates across the world!

And so COY was over we headed home to the dinner and de-brief – but for an added bonus there were Mariachi playing at our hostel for like two hours!! It was a brilliant way to end the day!!