Youth keep motivation after leaders fail to achieve a safe deal in Copenhagen

(written by Senan Gardner)  

The two weeks at COP15 have been a rollercoaster of emotion for the International Youth Climate Movement. The fortnight started with high spirits as international youth were celebrating their achievement of official constituency status. Finally the case for young and future generations was recognised with in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This excitement peaked on Thursday the 10^th of December when the Youth NGO constituency, (YOUNGO as they are referred to by the abbreviation-loving UNFCCC), held the “Young and Future Generations day. On this day there was a packed schedule of side events explaining the youth perspective and demands, including a session organised by the European Youth Forum (YFJ) that explored the legal framework of intergenerational equity. 

A major coup for the YFJ, as part of the European Youth Climate Movement, was the organising of a meeting of EU Ministers with EU youth on Tuesday the 15^th of December. At this event, John Gormley, the Irish Minister for the Environment, drew the comparison between the negotiations and an exam that hasn’t been studied for. Extending this metaphor, he predicted there would be a lot of cramming in the last days of the negotiations. Naomi Klein put it bluntly when she said in Klimaforum, that the conference was taken over by technocrats.  

Security activity certainly increased the second week as NGO’s found their numbers cut down to roughly 25% of their delegations on Tuesday and Wednesday. In addition to blocking all Friends of the Earth and Avaaz delegates on Wednesday, the security cut NGO participants to under 900 on Thursday and 300 on Friday under the pretence of security concerns. This dramatically decreased NGO participation to 1.5% of the original volume in the past week. Worse still, each day the Youth constituency was allowed 12 participants. Effectively the International Youth Climate Movement found their numbers split between the “few inside” and the “many outside”. Many youth who could only come for the second week, never even saw the inside of the conference centre, such as two young delegates of the Moldovan National Youth Council (CNTM)-who travelled at great personal expense to represent their country’s youth, only to find themselves waiting outside for days without ever seeing the inside of the Bella Centre.  

During this period, the YFJ was thrilled by European States that include youth as part of their official delegation, including the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Norway, Latvia and most recently Slovenia. These official youth delegates were able to help distribute information to the all the ministers and politicians who were unable to come to the Youth and Future Generations day the week before, on the importance of the youth voice and intergenerational equity.  

Other YFJ members continued to blog, tweet and connect with European and national media about the youth context to the negotiations inside the conference and outside in the alternative “people’s conference” Klimaforum. At the closing address to this conference on Friday, Naomi Klein addressed NGOs to tell them “the lesson that we tried and we failed, we didn’t do it, is extremely demobilising… we didn’t all try, many of us weren’t allowed to try”. She then called that “all the voices that were silenced, marginalised, repressed over these two weeks must take centre stage as we go to Mexico”. 

In the closing two days most youth gathered in an alternative venue in the “meat district” of Copenhagen, in an old abattoir that was converted into a gallery and then rented out to be an NGO space. A group of youth including representatives of the YFJ watched proceeding being broadcast live from the conference and continued to blog and “digg” relevant news articles and flag blogs to their RSS feed and other online tools.  

It was in these two days where the negotiations were seen to falter and eventually finish on a whimper instead of a bang. The “whimper” being the 2 and a half page “accord” agreed by a few powerful countries, who then touted it as a success. President Obama of the USA closed his address explaining that this accord was an important first step, and asked countries to input their voluntary efforts to mitigate emissions. However only a 2 degree target was used (contrary to the 1,5 degree advocated by most NGOs) and there was a lack of an agreed baseline year from which to measure the decrease, and even the earlier agreed target of 80% reductions for developed countries by 2050 was dropped. Even with the area of financing adaptation, it wasn’t made clear whether the 100billion in funding the US aimed for in the accord would be aid or bank loans. Lastly to add insult to injury, the president proceeded to tell reporters he’d “see [them] on the plane”. Meanwhile the EU appeared decidedly absent at the wrap up of the conference, and seemed sidelined by the main countries agreeing to the accord. Later, EU officials stated they agreed to the “disappointing” accord to avoid a “rupture” with developing countries.  

Not all that happened was negative and for the International Youth Climate Movement, two important decisions happened at the end of the negotiations. On the Friday night, indignant at the farce that the official negotiations had become, international youth made a decision to take to the Conference Centre then (at midnight in freezing conditions) to protest their dismay. However, while protests can be quite visual, they are short lived in the public attention. Thus, the more important second decision that followed, was to echo the final youth speaker Juan Carlos Soriano from Peru, in the closing plenary who stated on behalf of the IYCM that “we will keep on working and keep on pushing you harder and harder until a deal is sealed”.  That weekend, reaffirmed at a multitude of regional and delegation-wide wrap-up meetings, the International Youth Climate Movement decided that if their leaders don’t lead, they will. 

The International Youth Climate Movement had weathered Copenhagen and come through the other side with a few scars but whole, wiser and more experienced. Copenhagen served to focus the IYCM to consolidate its gains, such as the strong and fair governance model, and examine the next steps with unprecedented clarity.  

In the weeks that have followed Copenhagen, there has been an unprecedented action on the blogs, twitter account and mailing lists as members push for further action. Groups are already pushing their members to research what each can do in their home countries to lead change until the next intercessional in Bonn. At a recent meeting for the European Youth Climate Movement, of which the YFJ is a member, there were calls for a Europe-wide network of Youth Climate Coalitions such as are already in place in the UK, Netherlands and France. Ben Vanpeperstraete (YFJ) stated “our goal now is clear, we have to show youth leadership in addressing climate change, nationally and internationally. It is clear that this generation of leaders can't deliver a political solution to climate change to the world. Young leaders around the world are therefore already getting ready to rise up to the challenge themselves.”