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!!