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