COY crowd

Today was the second and last day of COY-5, the 5th Conference of Youth, where a reported 500+ youth got together to share, learn, organize and engage. Youth from both the South and the North organized workshops about the UNFCCC process, about what to expect from a COP, climate justice, specific policy topics (REDD, AWG-LCA, etc.), as well as attended “open spaces” with discussions about using our experiences, our successes and failures effectively, about regional issues, and about the role of youth within UNFCCC institutions and processes, to name but a few.

A lesson learned is that there is undoubtedly nothing quite like having the opportunity to have those kinds of conversations with such knowledgeable and engaged youth from the world over. To be in a space (that fosters spaces, a diversity of them) where people can talk about difficult issues, about climate debt, about the personal and the systemic, about privilege, and to work together, face to face, after months and months of organizing via the interwebs in twenty-some odd working groups. It was a privilege to team-build and to share with this group before we start our work at the COP tomorrow.

That being said, tomorrow is the first day of COP-15, with the opening plenary happening in the morning, and with some 5 000 accreditated over the Bella Center’s fire code limit, it’ll be quite the day (of queues) and quite the conference. Tomorrow is also the kick off day for many of the side events happening in Copenhagen, namely the Klimaforum, with a keynote address by Naomi Klein and George Monbiot.

Tomorrow is also Youth Day at the WWF’s Arctic tent, with Lynzii Taibossigai, Janice Grey and Daniel T’seleie, some awesome Canadian Youth Delegates, presenting on their experiences and work as Arctic youth.

The delegates are in town, the city of Copenhagen is all prepped, the daily programme for the day is up, and the international youth climate movement is on the ground. Let the talks begin.

some fun media from calgary to check out (Thanks to Alex Doukas for finding and sharing) :

“Harper will push for binding deal at copenhagen” (really? let us hope)

“Canada has targets on its back headed into Copenhagen summit”

“Is Canada really a climate villain?”