Marina Mansilla Herman at COP17
In comparison to other COPs, COP17 kicked off with perceived low expectations and ambitions – and certainly nor the media or the public have been attracted by previous COPs .But that didn’t mean that the issues at stake were any less important or critical: COP17 was expected to make key decisions on various fronts, including a second commitment period to the Kyoto Protocol (whether there would be any at all), approving the Green Climate Fund, launching the Adaptation Committee, making significant progress towards a new global agreement and various others. Whether the resulting Durban Platform for Action that came out of Durban is a success, depends much on whether you decide to be optimistic - on the fact that there is now an agreement to make an agreement – or pessimistic, if you prefer to acknowledge that the measures taken are still far from guaranteeing we stay below a 2°Ctemperature increase, which according to the science would be catastrophic for the earth systems.
During COP17, Climate Champions were involved in a variety of activities aimed at increasing our knowledge on climate change and the negotiation process, meeting and networking with key stakeholders in the field, interacting with party delegations, getting to know our fellow champions’ projects and also interacting with the community in Durban to bring the negotiations and our work to the people.
Also, each of us had its own mission related to advancing our projects back in our countries. In my case, my mission was to help build the bridge between Durban and the next Earth Summit (Rio+20) to take place in June 2012 in Rio de Janeiro and to widely promote the Rio+YOU campaign – a global youth mobilization towards Rio+20, which is about what each of us is doing to build the world we want to live in– rather than what we expecting others to do for us. I was able to talk and present the campaign in various settings, including side events and a reception with Brasil’s former Minister of Environment Marina Da Silva. I was also able to contribute to the setting up of a Latin American Youth Coalition against Climate Change (YOUNGO Latino) which is rapidly becoming a reality.
Another highlight included small group meetings (like VIP sessions!) arranged by the British Council that allowed us to speak with Sir Nicholas Stern, author of the famous ¨Stern Report¨, Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC and also Rajendra Pachauri, Head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).These were unique experiences that not only provided us with key insights about climate change, both the science and the negotiations, but also with blasts of inspiration to continue and increase our efforts.
As Climate Champions we were also part of the large youth delegation that every year attends the climate negotiations. The youth climate movement has been ever growing since 2004 and has only three years ago acquired Constituency Status within the UNFCCC, which means we are formally recognized as a key actor in the negotiations and allows us to voice our opinions through formal interventions in the plenaries. Youth are leveraging on this achievement and putting the benefits to good use my making regular statements, organizing actions inside the Conference and making sure our opinions are unmistakably visible.
But one of my favorite moments from my time in Durban was the day we managed to escape the Convention Center into a school near Durban to run workshops with the students. We wanted to tell them our stories as climate champions and activists. We wanted to share what was going on in the negotiations, talk about climate change and inspire them to take action. But once there, seeing how much this school was already doing and all that the students already knew, it was us who felt most inspired. We saw it already happening.
Because even when negotiations are moving slow, real change is already happening and is moving fast in other spheres. And in many, if not most cases, youth are leading and driving this change. Even in COPs, the negotiations have become only a small part of everything else going on, and that everything else is a hub of knowledge, actions, networking and synergies being created to fight and adapt to climate change.
We are in the face of the greatest revolution in history. The solution is coming from the grassroots, and sooner or later it will climb all the way up to the highest political spheres. Young people already know it.
The single most important souvenir I brought back from Durban is the firm decision and commitment to stay optimistic. We humans have the capacity to - and will - stand up to the biggest challenge in history. Only we need to truly and deeply believe it in our minds before we can make it happen.
*COP17 stands for the 17th Conference of the Parties. The COP is the maximum ruling body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and gathers every year the 195 parties to the Convention, as well as the parties to the Kyoto Protocol.
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