Youth set the bar high on effective international co-operation

While international negotiators are finalizing their position statements, and pressing their shirts for the start of the conference, the International Youth delegates were already hard at work.

Today, almost 200 youth from over 50 countries joined together to develop our shared vision, strategy, and positions as we head into the 14th UN climate change conferences. Beginning with some inspiring messages about why we have been brought together in Poland, participants learned the history of youth involvement, the basics of the policies involved, and the opportunities for making a difference here in Poland, as well as next year in Copenhagen.

After lunch, the youth split into various working groups, including communications, media, actions, and policy. Being of the policy bent myself, as any readers can probably now guess, I joined in with this working group. I was in disbelief over how much the interest in policy has grown since last year! We went from a group of about 10 international youth, to over 50 since last year. We were able to develop subgroups on 6 key issues, which include Forestry issues, Clean Development Mechanism issues, Mitigation, Adaptation, Finance, and Technology Transfer.

I'm very excited at how well the group is working together, and how well-organized we will be this year. Our objectives will be to follow these 6 areas, translate the policy developments into plain language for the media, communications, actions, and other groups, and develop a unified youth voice on our position on these issues.

I have been wonderfully amazed at how well such a large group of young people from such diverse backgrounds and cultures seem to cooperate seamlessly. We are able to agree on issues effortlessly, and share a strong, unified vision of reversing the climate change trends. A look around the large room at all these passionate, dedicated faces suggests that these are my teammates, and my partners in this quest to slow or end the destruction to our climate. Mal, a UK youth delegate, said it best when he said, "we are setting an example for how the international community should be cooperating on this issue". I couldn't agree more.