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.