Two Sleeps Away

Welcome, family and friends, to my Bali Blog!

There are mere hours to go until I depart with some fellow Guelph friends to a distant island paradise. Good-bye rainy/snowy November of fickle temperatures and feeble sun. Good-bye day-in and day-out drudgery of sleep-work-eat. Hello sunshine, heat and humidity, surf, sand, sea, and wind!

So for some who are unfamiliar with the reason behind this seemingly spontaneous departure, I will provide a quick backgrounder.

Being the climate change fighter that I am (and have been for the past few years), I decided to help coordinate the Canadian Youth Delegation to this year's United Nations climate change conference. I have been following the international climate negotiations since my introduction to the issues in 2005. It is the most all-encompassing, politically-fierce, fascinating dialogue happening on the planet in my lifetime, at least in my opinion. Especially to a lifelong environmentally-conscious citizen such as myself.

For those who do not know what about the conferences, I'll give a bit of a crash-course. Each year, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is hosted by a different country group. This year, Thailand would have hosted it, but encountered some domestic violence and delegated the hosting to Indonesia instead. Next year, it will be in Poland, and Copenhagen Denmark after that. The UNFCCC (one of a million acronyms encountered in this circle!) is a collection of several regular meetings of various intergovernmental 'working groups' that are discussing and negotiating on the many problems that form part of the climate change issue. They convene annually under the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention. This is also the meeting time and place for the Parties of the Kyoto Protocol (Meeting of the Parties, or MOP). UNFCCC frequenters call it the COP/MOP, and it is widely recognized as THE most important and influential annual international climate change negotiation meeting.

Youth (ages 18-26 according to the UN) are so critically important to these negotiations, because we do not represent a governing body, an environmental lobby group, or a business lobby group (although many of us are part of environmental groups!). We come with our own agenda: to protect our future and the future of the planet we hope to continue living on. We come with tools to peacefully - but persuasively - convince our national leaders to negotiate stricter targets to reduce CO2 emissions. We research policy and country block positions, liaise with media, and produce and display theatrical and creative presentations to "make our point loud and clear".

I'm very proud to be part of this year's team of almost 40 incredibly talented youth traveling to Bali. I'll be co-chairing the policy working group to ensure our efficiency and effectiveness while in Bali. I'll also be learning HEAPS while I'm at it. There is a ridiculously huge amount of information presented at these meetings! (just TRY navigating www.unfccc.int, and you'll realize how complicated this conference series is).

Anyway, that's the purpose of my trip. Of course, I'll stick around a few weeks to enjoy Bali once all the chaos of the conference settles down. I'll certainly need a REAL vacation after that! So keep checking back, and I'll keep you updated on my thoughts, lessons, experiences, insecurities, fears, and joys.

Good night!