WCC-3: Tuesday

Phew!

The end of another intense day at WCC-3 (well almost, I’m writing whilst in the last side event of the day; ‘climate change and groundwater’. Don’t worry – I’m a woman so I can multi-task!). I think we all got up this morning feeling a little less like we were asleep on our feet (unlike last night when we all looked like zombies) but we all agreed we could have done with another couple of hours in bed. But hey, the life of an international conference delegate is not an easy one. It can’t all be warm weather, swimming in lakes and eating… right?

 

The Declaration…
So today was the day when it all started properly. There was another plenary this morning but I took the opportunity to finish off the Youth Declaration that we decided to release alongside the declaration that the heads of state will publish on Thursday. So we now have a fancy looking document almost ready to sign and release with a press statement (keep an eye out on the website – I’m sure it will go up when it’s ready).

 

Figure 1: a sneak preview of the declaration!

 

Lunch Meetings? – that’s when you know you’ve made it!

Helpfully we also had a meeting with Media 21 at lunchtime, which was great (other than the lunch which was fairly lacking in veggie options and as you know from our pre-conference video, food is very important to us!). The journalists from around the world have come together to form a group based in media but with an interest in climate change and social justice, and they asked us to give a presentation about what we do, why we are taking part in WCC-3 and our opinions and approaches. Despite having to leave after 20 minutes (I had to go to my working session) I was massively impressed and really proud of us. We came out with some amazing answers to questions we hadn’t discussed or thought about before we went in. We all seemed to know which questions we should answer or leave to someone else seemingly without any verbal communication, and the journalists looked really impressed and interested in what we were saying. Good times!

 

Figure 2: Meeting with Media 21. It was more fun than the looks on our faces I promise!

 

Our chance to shine…?

This afternoon three of us had discussant roles in working groups, me in the ‘climate and health’ session, Amare in ‘climate and energy’, and Carolina in ‘climate, transportation and tourism’. I can’t really speak for mine but I think overall our contributions went really well. We spoke articulately and coherently about the role of youth in tackling these really important issues, especially considering we were up on stage with experts in the respective fields. I couldn’t be in Amare’s session but both in mine and in Carolina’s they left us to last to speak. In a way this was great because we gave a good change of pace and something a bit different at the end, but for both of us the session was really running out of time. I felt a bit like an addition on the end to tick the box of youth inclusion. This may not be the case, but it felt like it to me.

 

Creating opportunities

Even so, I remain undeterred. As I said in the Media 21 meeting, even if the WMO got us here for a ‘box ticking exercise’ in inclusion I will create as many opportunities as I can to get the youth voice heard – one of the reasons why I think the youth declaration is so important. We have been working hard on getting hold of some well-known people to meet us, and we are still working on a time-slot in which to read our declaration to the heads of state and ministers on Thursday. As yet we have had limited success but I am confident that if we carry on squeezing the contacts that we have already made then we can get somewhere.

 

Onwards and Upwards

So tomorrow we will carry on making contacts, participating in working groups and getting our youth voice across. But first I feel dinner and some serious sleep is needed. =)

 

- Ellie Hopkins