It’s Getting Hot In Here

Ellen Choy is at it again!

Read below about EJCC’s participation in they Youth Caucus.

12-11-07:

Today was a big day for the youth caucus, as they completed the final statement they will be reading to the high-level plenary on Friday as their official statement as the youth representatives. And Tony and I were able to fully, and loudly, participate. Having now been widely exposed to the activity here at the conference, it is clear that these statements will be some of the most important opportunities, if not the most important, to influence anything politically and legislatively substantial that is happening behind closed doors. The youth caucus’s statement acts as a demand for action amongst the government delegates to push for stringent policies on climate change. Therefore, given the invitation to participate in the small working group drafting the statement, both Tony and I quickly jumped to make this the focus of our work today.

It was clear that our input was needed. The youth caucus consists of over 200 delegates from many countries, largely dominated by delegations from Canada, the US and Australia (surprise, surprise). Furthermore, only a handful of those delegates are people of color, narrowing the actual representation of communities of color from both the North and South overall to maybe 10% of the total youth caucus. I almost felt uncomfortable noticing the intrigued response from the room when Tony and I entered as youth specifically representing communities of color in the US. But, the sense of community in the room as the youth caucus was sufficiently unifying, and other representatives, such as groups from Japan and Indonesia, were refreshingly not shy to show face and at least participate.

Also, driving active discussions to make moves as a unified youth front, is the commonly sensed frustration with the COP/MOP as this highly-process-focused conversation, where specific issues and voices, such as the youth, are not being heard. Instead, narrow talks around post-Kyoto and North-South politics are dominating discussions. This triggered the consensus that this year, more than ever,the youth, as well as other special caucuses will need to present strong, cohesive fronts.

Tony and I sat down with 5 to 15 (busy schedules caused people to jump in and out) youth delegates to refine and revise the drafted statement to be read Friday at the high-level plenary. We really stuck our noses in the process, to fight for inclusion of climate justice language, as well as simply fortifying the policy demands the youth will be presenting in the statement. It is clear that we cannot back down at any point during this conference or more generally in any work we do in similar spaces in which our communities can be affected by conversations that are happening here. Even in specialized forums, such as a youth caucus, where a lack of justice principles is evident, we are called upon by our place on the EJCC delegation and as representatives of our communities to push for an inclusion of a strong CJ perspective.

My expectation is that it will be no small task to continue to fight for what we are here to stand for, but that there still exists significant potential for us to be heard. In fact, because of our presence today in the youth caucus, we have been invited to present a climate justice testimony in tomorrow’s international youth press conference.