CSD: Day 8

Crazy day – first, since I took the Youth Caucus’ meeting’s minutes yesterday morning, this morning I have to chair. We only have about 40 minutes to get through a half page of agenda points, so I can’t leave too much room for questions and discussions. Fortunately, everyone by now is so tired that that is not a problem. We breeze through most of the agenda points and end with a presentation by Felix Dodds of the Stakeholder Forum, on the major Rio+20 conference that will take place in 2012. He’s a great presenter who energizes the room, not only for Rio+20 but for the rest of this day as well.

This is an exciting day, because it’s the opening of the High Level Segment: from today on, everything moves into flux as ministers and other big shots arrive to finalize the conference. That is not to say that these people are particularly knowledgeable: since they have such broad portfolios, it’s more a matter of them being brief by staff who have followed CSD in detail, and then giving the official rubber stamp to decisions. This goes with the necessary decorum: in the morning there is a 3-hour plenary meeting at the General Assembly hall in the main building, which most of us can only attend from the 4th-floor balcony. I come in with high expectations, but they have to be rapidly adjusted to the realities of the UN: almost all of the speeches given by the invited ‘eminent speakers’ are excruciatingly boring. My notebook, which I had eagerly taken out, stays empty.

The latter half of the day is devoted to the topic of which I lead the Youth Caucus working group: Mining. This ‘interactive ministerial roundtable’ turns out to be basically the same as previous sessions: a long list of 3-5 minute pre-written statements by governments. A lot of these simply reiterate things that we all knew before coming to CSD: “mining can be a driving force of the economy, but also can have negative impacts, which we must seek to manage and reduce” etc. etc. At the end of the session, the Major Groups are allowed to speak and I take the floor to deliver our statement. It’s primarily about child labor, and ends by directly asking countries what steps they will take to eradicate child labor in mining by 2015. Apart from the Belgian government, we are the only ones to mention child labor – disgraceful. Hopefully our statement will contribute to the topic’s inclusion in policy. The positive feedback I informally receive on our statement gives me some hope.

We close the day by going with a group of 12 to the Apollo Theater’s Amateur Night, in Harlem. After this extremely busy day, it’s great to spend the evening shouting and clapping at the contestants, as well as doing a little dancing. All this energy that gets bottled up during the day needs a way out – I wonder what Friday night will look like… two more days!

- Bastiaan Bouwman

CSD: Introductions

Hello everyone. Like every year, TYN sends a delegation to CSD. Here is a brief introduction to the members of the delegation:

Bastiaan Bouwman

Hi, my name is Bastiaan Bouwman, from Amsterdam. Having worked with TYN for three years now, on topics like the MDG's, corporate social responsibility and international NGO politics, it's great to bring that experience to a real UN conference. I hope to learn a lot from attending CSD and coordinating the delegation, as well as contributing substantially to the process and content of the conference. It's a big responsibility, sothere's an intense two weeks coming up but I'm looking forward!

Matthew Gullo

Hi everybody, as a local of NYC I like my nice walks to the UN and around the world's greatest city. In the fall I'll be attending Duke Graduate School studying International Affairs. I hope to have a productive UNCSD

Sven Herreman

My name is Sven Herreman, from Brussels, Belgium. I have been participating in TYN for one and a half years, with this being my third international UN conference (COP 15, and UNCSocD), as well as participating in 2 TYA’s and being Deputy-President for the 2010 Summer Symposium. I hope to learn more about the functioning of the Youth in the UN, as well as networking.

Tara Yip-Bannicq

Hi, my name is Tara Yip-Bannicq and I'm half French/half Chinese. I'm one of those 'third culture people' who doesn't really know where they're from. I finished my MSc in International Political Economy at the London School of Economics last year and have been working in the disaster relief sector since then for the JUMP! Foundation, a youth empowerment organisation. This is my first TYN delegation and I like bagels.

Natalie Lum-Tai

Natalie Lum-Tai hails from Mississauga, Ontario but is currently living the life of a true Montréalaise while pursuing a Joint Honours in Political Science and History at McGill University. She has a passion for youth engagement and is a strong advocate of children having a role in all matters that affect them, as proscribed by the UNCRC. This is her first time working with TYN and she is excited to see what contribution they can make at CSD-18, especially in the final review year before the implementation of the 10-year SCP framework.

Angie Lai

My name is Angie Lai and I'm from Hong Kong, China, and in recent years I living in different countries trying out all the opportunities. I joined TYA the first time in July 2008 as the chair of the Human Rights and Youth committee, and since then I have been actively participating in the network. I’m really happy to participate in UNCSD-18. My interests are transport and the 10-year framework on SCP, and I’m hoping to learn the most out of this conference.

CSD: Day 4

As usual, the day started with joining the never-ending long queue outside UNHQ, but despite the security check fuzz and the called-off meeting with the Chinese delegates, everything went fine and well. Today was a really busy day all filled with meetings with country delegates and UN officials, as well as people from major groups, and I am actually very pleased to see the enthusiasm from young people trying hard to lobby for changes - they sacrificed lunch time and the opportunity to explore NYC to help create a better world, what passion!!!

The first meeting was with Ms. Federica Pietracci, the Sustainable Development Officer Division for Sustainable Development Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Ms. Pietracci has been working with the UNCSD Youth Caucus for a few years already, and is really in a position trying to understand youths' participation in the UN issues. She told us a lot about how the UN and youths are connected, as well as a few country delegates to lobby to.

Mr. Rasio Ridho Sani, Assistant Deputy Minster for Management of Hazardous Substances and Hazardous Waste in Indonesia, was the second person we had a meeting with today. He and his colleague were both very friendly to us and spent almost two hours trying to help us understand the Sustainable Development situation in Indonesia and provided answers to our other questions. Mr. Sani claimed that it's not because Indonesia does not want to engage youth in the UN issues, however, issues such as waste management and mining are too complicated to be understood by youth and children, and that they also experience shortage of financial aid in promoting these aforementioned issues. Although the promotion in Sustainable Development is being hampered by various reasons, the Indonesian government is constantly working their way on providing youth and children a better place to live in.

After the formal meeting, Mr. Sani and his colleague also spent time in just chatting with us on different topics, for example, what our dreams and ambitions are.

It's a pity that I couldn't finish the entire meeting with the Indonesian delegation as the TYN delegation had earlier on arranged a meeting with Mr. Jan-Gustav Strandenaes - Senior Consultant of the United Nations, at 15:00 in the Austria Café. Mr. Strandenaes is very approachable and interactive, he did not only answer our questions and provided us insights on the topic on Sustainable Development, he also suggested a few professionals for us to contact for lobbying, and even more, he was interested in being one of the guest speakers for the 2010 TYN Summer Symposium J Before Mr. Strandenaes left, he reminded us, as youth, should never give up and be optimistic about the future; when we look back later, we'll see there is indeed a change.

I was actually very happy to see how these adults and professionals in the top of the hierarchy value youths' ideas and participation in important decision-making process, although sometimes we may sound too ideal and unrealistic and perhaps stupid to them?!

After the long and tiring working day, I just sat in the side-event in Mining and Indigenous People, which I found it very interesting and had learnt a lot from the Human Rights Lawyer.

UNCSD has been beyond fun and inspiring so far, however, there's a concern as to whether we will actually have time to see the exciting city or not, if me and Natalie could hunt down to Times Square for shopping, and if Vicnan could ever have a chance to visit the Statue of Liberty after three times of participating at CSD.

And finally, the long-awaited delegation pizza dinner took place in Central Park, and very unluckily, Matt had to rush to work and couldn't join us; and we, the girls of this delegation, are still very curious in understanding some of the secret words used within the group. I propose a motion to explain these 'jargons' to us!!

This is not the end. I can't end this blog by not mentioning the fact that I actually met the Secretary General of the UN today after printing off some copies in the main building. It was short, but it made my day.

Angie Lai

A Ray of Light

According to the dictionary a plenary is the following:

Plenary

adj.

Complete in all respects; unlimited or full: a diplomat with plenary powers.

Fully attended by all qualified members: a plenary session of the council.

To be honest, this doesn’t make any sense seeing what I saw today. A couple of people sitting in one big room talking about documents with wonderful titles such as FCCC/CP/2009/4, honestly, it’s hard to make sense of. But after silly discussions about the logo have past and the ‘fun’ stuff is over the Fifteenth Conference of Parties (COP15) gets really serious.

Today a country called Tuvalu made a curious move. After having discussed the above mentioned document, a proposal for an additional document to the Kyoto protocol, the small island state managed to somehow get the session of COP suspended. In theory this sounds like an event that would have stopped the talks continuing. In practice the agenda point was suspended and the negotiations continued with the next agenda point.

Yet what happened over the next few hours can only be described as a movement that arose on the spot. Tuvalu gained massive support from NGOs because of its radical proposal to fight climate change. At 3PM, as COP went back into session protests were started by several NGOs. The blame, however much people would like, cannot be placed with the youth. The as of now unidentified NGOs had made banners beforehand for which the youth simply does not have the resources. Nevertheless, the group of adults was joined by youth present and UN security had to intervene to allow parties to access the plenary.

Sadly this meant that all NGOs were no longer allowed to enter the plenary to observe. Those already present were allowed to remain seated. The entire conference, however, was clearly in an uproar about the event and media was buzzing everywhere, eager to report.

A day that I spend mostly in the plenary ended up being extremely interesting. Despite many confusing factors the day seemed, personally, more productive than any day here so far.

Let’s hope parties are not afraid to speak up like Tuvalu today. The size of a country doesn’t have to matter to make an impact on a day at COP. Let’s just hope the impacts reaches further than that.

Amongst the Chaos...

Amidst the chaos and throng of people, the COP15 negotiations continued at a steady but increasing pace. You can notice the increased confidence in the people as they discover their purpose within the conference. A conference of this size, roughly 45,000 participants, the meetings can seem quite hectic but we do hope that we can have some form of influence. Our goal as TYN members is to lobby and get out our policy line into the negotiating text, to try to influence leaders into adopting a legally adopting agreement, and to network and create contacts, potentially as speakers for future summer symposiums, to obtain leadership roles within youth working groups, and develop new ideas for upcoming TYA conferences.

So far, our second day is quite productive, though we are still finding our feet. Xander Brouwer has provided support for participants, who have new ideas on Youth Produced Media. Beth Gunningham engaged with the adaptations policy group and is now working on drafting policy text as well as finding candidates to interview. Sven Herreman took charge of the finance policy group and will be representing them in the spokescouncil. Michelle Son attended the US State Department briefings on recent negotiations. On an exciting note, all members of the TYN delegation will be attending the spokescouncil meeting tomorrow morning. We hope that tomorrow will be equally as productive as today.

Conference of Youth; Here at Last!

On the weekend before COP15 begins, a conference is held for the youth delegates attending COP. The Conference of Youth, or COY, is in part a training ground for delegates, in part an information sharing forum and in part a place for delegates to meet and network before COP commences.

A number of workshops were held on subjects such as UNFCCC processes, Emissions Trading Schemes, the Kyoto Protocol and Long Term Cooperative Action, how to use a day at COP15 effectively, and Youth Media. As a delegation, we split ourselves across the groups so that we could share information between ourselves and gain as much from the workshops as possible. The workshops were very informative and, I think, have put us in good position for the beginning of COP15.

In the afternoon there was an ‘open space’ for discussing the role of Youth at COP15, our expected outcomes for the conference, and whether we could use any perceived failures to our advantage. For this open space we talked as a delegation, along with other youth, to brainstorm on these subjects. This was instrumental in further developing our own agenda, as a delegation, for COP15.

Finally, at the end of the day, we were split into working groups, such as policy and media. This was a great opportunity for deepening our understanding of issues that we will be focusing on at COP, as well as for meeting delegates who will be working in similar areas as ourselves.

Overall, COY was a success and the TYN delegation gained much from the experience. The knowledge and contacts gained from this conference will put us in good stead for COP15.

Introducing TYN COP15 Delegation

Hey everyone! I'm sure you guys want to know more about the TYN Delegation in COP15 so here are our introductions!

Beverly Ng

My name is Beverly(Bev) Ng and I’m from Sydney, Australia. I’m currently completing a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences at University of Sydney, majoring in Government, International Relations and Environmental Studies. I’ve been involved with TYN for a number of years, starting with TYA10. This is my second year at COP and I’m excited to be working with such an amazing team for COP15. I’ll be mainly working in the policy group, particularly on adaptation and mitigation policies.

Annika Greup:

My name is Annika Greup, I come from the Netherlands, study European Politics in Oxford, and am delegation coordinator along with Beverly for our TYN delegation here at COP15! I've been involved with TYN for a number of years and last year I attended COP14 in Poznan, which was a great experience. I'm even much more looking forward to COP15 getting started, considering how much higher the stakes are this year. I'll be great to keep you all updated through this blog!

Xander Brouwer:

My name is Xander Brouwer and I am studying History and International Relations at the University of Aberdeen. I have been working with TYN since TYA13 and I am currently the President for the Summer Symposium. At COP15 I will be coordinating the Youth Produced Media at COP and produce media for TYN. Some strange information about me: I do not drink beer despite being from the Netherlands.

Sven Herreman:

My name is Sven Herreman, and I am a law student in the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Brussels. I have been active in TYN since TYA 13, and I was supposed to be president of the 2009 Summer Symposium. I will be a co-coordinator for TYA 14, and Deputy President for the 2010 Summer Symposium. At COP 15, I will be compiling a contact-database for TYN as well as being in the Policy workgroup.

Beth Gunningham:

Hey, I'm Beth. I'm mostly Australian but am a citizen of Australia, England and the USA, so my nationality is a little confused. I'm currently studying Law and Development Studies at the Australian National University and I'm loving it so far (law is actually much less boring than I thought it would be!). As far as random facts about myself go, I have crazy eyes; I can vibrate my irises and can move my eyelids inwards and outwards, not just up and down. I also have an obsession with skies, speak Swahili (or try to) and my favourite time of day is 12:34.

Michelle Son:

Hi! My name is Michelle Son and I'm from California. I'm currently studying International Relations at The University of San Diego. I've been invovled with TYA for the past year now and also will be co-coordinating Environmental Sustainability and Human Development this January for TYA 14. I am the deputy secretary general of my university's MUN club.

Gina Murphy:

My name is Gina Murphy. I am Irish and and have lived in Dublin all my life until this year. I am currently doing an MPhil (masters) in Development Studies in Cambridge, UK. My experiences in TYN made me very interested in development so I was eager to study it from an academic perspective. I have been working with TYN for four years now. I am very excited about COP15. It is a conference which is frequently mentioned in my lectures as being the most important event of the decade.

That’s it for now! You’ll hear about what TYN will be specifically working on at COP15 tomorrow so stay tuned!

TYN on the ground for the UN Climate Talks in Copenhagen!

Hi guys!
My name is Beverly and I’m one of the delegation coordinators for TYN’s COP15 delegation. The TYN COP15 Delegation is here on the ground in Copenhagen, getting ready for the UN Climate talks that will start on Monday!

Throughout the next two weeks, we will be blogging about our activities here at COP15 and provide you with the newest updates regarding the negotiations! We will be engaging you in the process by updating our blog here, on TYN’s Twitter and facebook:

Twitter

Facebook

You are encouraged to submit questions, comment on our blogs and keep track of what we are doing here!
Despite cold and windy weather we are very excited to be taking place in this conference the next few weeks.

In the next few days, we will be introducing ourselves to you and give you an idea of what we will be doing at UN climate talks.
Hope you are all excited and hyped up as we are!
Cheers,
Beverly