Diary of COP16 WAGGGS youth delegate: 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!!!!