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!!

Day 2

Street view of Cancun Downtown

Terrace of our Hostel

New Zealand Youth Delegation's Art Message from school kids

After negotiating crazy bus stations, negotiating with taxis, getting lost for a bit, going past endless police and army trucks with machine guns, we arrived at Cancun Messe to get our accreditation for COP16. Accreditation is permission to enter the COP events and be on location – its essentially a backstage pass. However as we aren’t official government delegates, we don’t have access all areas, but we get pretty close!!

We navigated across the city, it took over an hour, to get back to the university where COY was being held. We arrived in time to see the final few presentations that were on success stories of youth Climate Change campaigners.

 We saw presentations from the New Zealand Youth Delegates who have been travelling around their country giving workshops on climate change impacts and science at schools and helping the kids to see where they can make a difference!  There was also a presentation from the Philippines Official Youth Delegation and one from the Nepalese Youth for Climate Action. The Nepalese group ran a campaign which raised awareness about changes in mountains ecosystems and glaziers melting in Nepal as a result of climate change. This campaign influenced their national government, which lead to a change to the government changing the way they address climate change in Nepal.

After the mornings sessions it was off to working groups. I didn’t mention it yesterday, but COY is run by YOUNGO, the international youth organisation that campaigns on climate change. The working groups are formed within YOUNGO and are working on position statements or policy platforms as part of the YOUNGO campaign. I still hadn’t decided on a working group to join by this stage so I went to go a see what a few of them were up to. I went to a Women and Youth working group, led by one of our very own WAGGGS delegates, which was aiming to bring the issues of women and youth into the UNFCCC negotiations and get the words, young women and girls into the text of the convention.

The next working group I went to was the long term strategy group, which is working on developing a long term plan to guide the work and focus on YOUNGO in the next few years. This is a relatively new and abstract working group so it was more exchanging ideas about what we saw as possible future visions for YOUNGO.

On top of all this, all the WAGGGS delegates are in working groups of our own; either policy, actions or blogging. I am in the blogging working group and we are creating written word, videos and photo content for WAGGGS and UNICEF everyday! We have a blog and are putting videos on the WAGGGS website and the UNICEF youtube channel. Today the other four bloggers and I were finding youth delegates to interview and find out hopes and expectations on the COP negotiations. I interviewed two young women, one representing the Cook Islands and the other from the Indian Delegation and central policy agency! We have had a bit of difficulties with internet the last day or so, so hopefully they will all be up soon and I can post the link!

After such a long day we got a real treat! YOUNGO and the university within which we were holding COY at had organised a session of traditional Mexican dancing – there was so many beautiful dresses and costumes and the dancers were so very talented!! It was a really great way to end the day J

Day 1



Dormitories at Ticalli



Common Room at Ticalli

Well I finally made it to Cancun – after months of preparation and just over 23 hours of buses, flights and hanging about it airports I am here!! But it was worth it, Mexico has been a great place to visit and being a WAGGGS youth delegate at the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties 16 (COP16) is going to be tops!

In case you don't know, WAGGGS is the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts and the 12 other youth delegates and I are in Cancun to be the voice of the 10 million Girl Guides and Scouts at the COP16!

I stayed overnight between flights at Ticalli in Mexico City, which is a hostel owned by the Mexican Guides and Scouts. It was a beautiful building, set just back from the road with massive gothic gates with big trefoils on the gates [will load picture soon]. The lady that runs the Hostel is called Corni and she is truly lovely and helped me my Spanish so I didn’t sound like a complete numpty when I ordered my dinner!! Would definitely recommend it to any Guide travelling in Mexico and it’s a great extra if you are heading to Our Cabana! Here is the website with more pictures – check it out! They even have a really nice English speaking tour Guide that comes to pick you up from the airport with a little sign with you name on it so you don’t have to negotiate taxis!!

But first day of the WAGGGS delegation was spent at COY 6 – the 6th Conference of Youth. COY is held just before COPs and its chance for youth from all over the world to get together and prepare for what action and work we are going to do at COP! There were youth present from over 25 different countries – the largest delegation being from Mexico J but the largest international delegation there on the day was from New Zealand with 12 guys from the New Zealand Youth Delegation. They had been really active before the event as well and bought with them a huge tree banner which they had taken around to schools and asked youth to write what they wanted global leaders to achieve at COP this year! It was really impressive, some of the kids must have been pretty young because there were a few cute spelling errors, but just meant that there are some really young kids switched on about the impacts of climate change in NZ – top marks to the NZ guys!! [Will load a picture soon!]

COY is a set up as a series of youth led workshops related to climate change science, sustainable development, gender issues, UNFCCC processes and advocacy work, that all youth delegates can attend if they are passionate about or want to learn more information about. There was about 4 or 5 choices of workshop each session, so there was a lot to choose from! Being new to the COP and COY scene I spent the morning session at the UNFCCC Crash course – OMG there are just so many acronyms and some really long ones as well, like LULUCF or AWG-LCA...google them to find out what they are J The course was really useful and is going to be helpful as the TLAs and other acronyms come flying thick and fast on Monday!

The afternoon was a “Speed dating” session held in a gorgeous and lush resort right next to a pool and marina!! We weren’t dating people, we were dating Youth Working Groups – there have been working groups set up for loads of topics relevant to Climate change and COP16 such as communication strategies, Long Term Policies, Positive Actions, Girls and Young Women, Finance etc. Essentially if they are talking about it at the COP there is a youth working group planning actions and interventions to try to influence the global leader’s decisions!!

The session after that was a meet and greet with NGOs that are working in the Climate Change space. There were so many that we didn’t get to meet everyone, but there representatives from NGOs in Africa and Latin America as well as people from HUGE NGOs like Climate Action Now International which has 500+ member organisations all the way down to small localised NGOs that were making local impact!

It was a great day but I am suffering from information overload at the moment! After a speedy diner at Maccas (default to what you know when you are in a hurry!!) we rushed back to the hostel to de-brief and plan for Day 2. Someone has entrusted me with a Video camera...so expect videos galore...mwhahaha!!

Q.