How are young people engaging with COP 17 (the 17th Conference of the Parties) Conference, as world leaders and environment ministers meet to discuss Climate Change and the future of our planet?

In many ways: young people an important role to play because we have the most at stake in these negotiations, it is our future which is being decided, and we who will inherit the decisions made or the terribly implications of the decisions not made at these conferences.

There is also a wide variety of young people here and we all have different ideas about how to be most effective in the process itself.

Firstly, there is YOUNGO, the official group for youth which has the ability to make interventions (deliver speeches) in the plenary sessions. This youth group meets every morning in a spokes council to share information, decide how to effectively engage and plot strategy for the day to come.

Some government delegations have young people participating in the delegations themselves. These young people wear pink badges in the conference center and are involved in tracking the negotiations, help to shape national policy, and represent the voice of youth in the delegations.

Next up there are nationally organized youth delegations such as the SustainUS, the Indian Youth Climate Coalition, the United Kingdom Youth Climate Coalition and the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition, These groups work to raise the profile of their countries policy stances, amplify the voices of communities which are not being heard in the negotiations and harness the power of traditional and social media to communicate the events at the conference to the world.

As a young person witnessing the process and the sometimes painful inaction on the part of those who hold power in the negotiations, each day is an incredibly fast paced and very very long roller-coaster. Each hour can bring new highs and lows and sometimes it is difficult to say exactly how effective our actions are at moving the negotiations themselves.

When I meet with other youth from around the world and learn about how climate change is effecting front line communitiies along with what they are doing to confront this immense challenge, I can’t help but be motivated to rise to the occasion, push through the exhaustion and fight with all I’ve got for a better, sustainable future.

Hello Everyone,

If you haven’t heard about shark finning yet, you probably will soon. Shark fins are used in the famous Chinese cuisine, Shark Fin Soup. The practice used to obtain the fins is especially cruel, the fins are cut off while the shark is still alive and then it is returned to the ocean to die. The practice of shark finning is currently illegal in Canada and the US, but the importing of fins is not. It is estimated that 73 million sharks are killed each year for their fins. Not only the fact that it is horribly cruel, the loss of so many of the ocean’s top predators can throw off regulation in its ecosystem, which would in turn have an impact on all ecosystems! Recently, municipalities in Ontario are starting to ban the sale of shark fins in restaurants. Our 1^st littler fighter in this big fight is: Brantford Ontario, who enforced the ban in May 2011. This was followed by bans in Mississauga, Toronto and Pickering. Additionally, this year California and Oregon have also banned shark fin products. This past week, the New Democratic Party of Canada proposed a ban on all shark fin imports nationwide. Stay tuned for updates on how that pans out.

But momentum on this cause is definitely picking up and hopefully will keep going to see more municipalities, provinces, states and hopefully countries band the use and importing of the shark fins. If you’re interested more on this topic, check this doc Shark Water by Rob Stewart, who also led a discussion with TIG members last spring.

http://www.sharkwater.com/

Also, the International Humane Society has some good facts and links to the latest news on Shark Finning:
 

http://www.hsi.org/issues/shark_finning/

 

- Christine

Youth Environment and Education Forums: 

Recommendations for the Rio+20 Earth Summit

 

 

In October 2011, young people, educators, and environmentalists gathered in London, Paris, Milan, Amsterdam and Oslo for a series of environmental forums organized by Tread Lightly. The purpose of these forums was to formulate recommendations for the Rio+20 Earth Summit agenda. The outcomes of each forum were beneficial in giving us an idea of the principal environmental concerns that the youth have, and where would they like to see more work being done. All the participants actively engaged in the conversation and produced policy recommendations with regard to their own country and the European community. Participants formulated recommendations related to the following issues: environmental education; waste; food; water; energy; and transportation management.  

When we focused on the issue of waste management, we realized that European youth believe that although there has been a lot of progress on issues like sorting and recycling waste, although there is still much to be done with regards to the infrastructure for the collection of waste at the municipal levels around the continent. 

As part of the recommendations, youth suggested increasing the availability of sorting and collection centers in each city. At the national and international level, they suggested that it is necessary to impose more restrictions on landfill waste in the EU and require consumers to bring the products used (such as electronics) back to the producers at the end of the product’s life for de-processing. 

With regards to food, some countries in Europe, such as Italy and Norway, suggested that there has been some progress in food education and its distribution. For instance, Italy’s “Kilometer 0” campaign to promote local consumption. Nonetheless, youth suggest that it is important to create more campaigns to learn about food issues for children and adults. Among these food issues are: organic food, nutrition and healthy cooking; the social and environmental costs of food, meat consumption in particular; and food distribution costs. Finally, they also recommended that it would be beneficial for society if food regulatory agencies were to measure food production by nutritional value, rather than kilos.

The issue of water was also taken very seriously in the forums. Water is a human right; everyone deserves it and everyone needs it. It is crucial that governments create proper infrastructure to ensure that everyone has access to it. 

Many of the youth who participated have suggested to use the tax systems to create, upgrade and maintain this infrastructure, and to improve water treatment systems. Norwegian youth in particular suggested to continue and increase the promotions of existing environmental campaigns such as ““Blue October”, a national campaign in 2009 during which youth could address their demands on water, climate and sanitation to Norwegian politicians.

Energy efficiency is also an issue that needs to be addressed. In the last few decades, there have been major technological developments that can help to ensure that energy is used efficiently. Nonetheless, society has not been implementing these developments as much as we could be. Governments should ensure this expertise is implemented by creating laws and policies that make it difficult for people not to be sustainable.

Furthermore, with regard to the issue of transportation, much could be accomplished by promoting the use of public transportation. Governments should improve public transportation and promote the use of public transportation or car-sharing programs. Additionally, by reducing business travel, the carbon footprint generated by cars could significantly decrease.

Although the youth from each country had different concerns and recommendations, they all agreed on the need to increase environmental education for children and teenagers around the globe. Great things could be achieved if youth had increased knowledge on sustainable development. For example, children and adults need to know more about the consumption of the water, its carbon footprint, and the pros and cons of the current debate in many countries: public or privately owned. Similarly, they need to understand where the energy comes from and how to use it in a sustainable way. 

Many participants suggested that one way to ensure this education is transmitted to children is through the collaboration of schools and universities. University students could share their expertise and knowledge about energy with younger students.  Also, environmental education should be part of the permanent curriculum in schools. Increasing the knowledge that young people have about these issues could increase their involvement with stakeholder groups, industries and producers. 

The recommendations gathered by the Youth Environment and Education Forums are very valuable in shedding light on the principal environmental concerns that the youth have and where would they like to see more work being done. There is clearly a need to increase environmental education as well as an increase in infrastructure for water management and treatment. Similarly, youth would like to see governments implementing more of the technological developments that could help in the transition to a more sustainable society. 

 

In the city of bicycles and canals, we wrapped up our series of environment forums in style - on a houseboat! After a conversation with Pauline at NEWNRG Academy, a renewable energy enterprise, she offered us her houseboat office space as a venue. It was a great fit because it was completely off the grid, using renewable energy sources.

Pauline also connected us with Claire, a recent university graduate in Environmental Resource Management who took on the role of event organizer extraordinaire, coordinating the houseboat preparations and arranging for delicious refreshments, including organic soda donated from Oggu, an Amsterdam company. Claire's dedication and attention to detail were inspiring, she was instrumental in putting together a fabulous event. 

Marloes, Tread Lightly's Dutch Language and Engagement Coordinator, also joined in to help recruit participants and prepare some tasty appetizers.

Before we got started, Layana from NEWNRG Academy gave us an overview of the features of the houseboat and its innovative renewable energy sources. 

The Amsterdam forum brought together players in environmental education and Rio+20 organizers from across the city, including NME Centrum, Eco-schools, FELT Agency, and JMA. Many of the participants were involved in Rio+20 work in their respective organizations, which made for a well-informed discussion. 

We were pleased to welcome three representatives from Staples Europe at the event: Katy, Jamie and Mark from the Amsterdam office joined in to talk about Staples' ongoing support for Tread Lightly and participate in the discussion. Several ideas arose around how to connect companies such as Staples with community efforts, thanks to their contributions. 

The Staples involvement extended the the Lunch and Learn event at the Amsterdam office, where I presented to a group of 20 employees, introducing Tread Lightly with the goal of encouraging environmental responsibility among the Staples crowd. Everyone in attendance enjoyed a delicious lunch and contributed to a discussion around environmental initiatives that could be implemented at their office. 

With the Amsterdam event behind us, the next step is to compile the recommendations from each summit and submit to the UN and Peace Child International's Rio+20 contributions! Stay tuned for a summary of our recommendations. 

 

I was welcomed to Paris by the lovely Sarah Toumi, one of the founders of DREAM and an active TakingITGlobal member who has represented TIG at many conferences and events. Sarah was also the French Coordinator for Tread Lightly during its inaugural year, so it was fitting that she came on board to make arrangements for our Parisian Youth Environment and Education Forum. 

Sarah's organizational skills blew me away - she put together a fabulous event with involved and interested participants, all of whom had participated in a preparatory meeting to discuss the issues prior to coming to the forum. Attendees included university students and representatives from various environmental groups, including a group that was putting on a model Rio+20 event. All the participants took the work of making recommendations very seriously, and their contributions didn't end when the forum finished - they created Google docs so they could continue and polish up their work in progress, before making a final submission. 

Coinciding with the timing of this forum was the Girls20 Summit, a conference on the topic of global issues related to girls and women. I had the chance to attend along with Sarah and Chiara Palieri, Tread Lightly's Italian Coordinator. It was a great place for networking to promote the Tread Lightly educational materials, and it also turned out to be a star-studded event, featuring talks from Academy Award winner Forrest Whittaker, Sudanese supermodel Alek Wek, and Canada's very own Jann Arden, who closed the event with an acoustic serenade of "Good Mother."