International youth at the 2008 Conference of Youth in Poznan.
Something incredible is happening here in Poznan. Delegations of young people from countries and organizations around the world have come together, uniting to form an International Youth Delegation. While the world remains fragmented on the issue of climate change, the world’s youth – in many ways, at least – have come together.
Days before the United Nations Climate Change Conference officially convened, hundreds of young people met for the Conference of Youth, an event designed to formulate a shared vision of international youth, to organize a number of provocative actions throughout the conference, and to coordinate messaging, communication, policy, and strategy amongst the many youth delegations participating.
Now, in the final days of the Poznan conference, it is clear that international youth have made significant progress. We have a common messaging platform, have organized dozens of actions and media events, developed working relationships between youth delegations, are assisting understaffed government delegations, and have developed productive policy working groups. We even have a logo!
The weight of such progress, however, has brought the International Youth Delegation to a critical moment. To manage the multifaceted and diverse nature of the delegation, issues with governance and structure are continually arising.
Structure. It either kills you or lets you fly.
Reflecting on the past week, I am reminded of William Golding’s classic novel, Lord of the Flies. After crash landing on a deserted island, Golding’s boys quickly get to work, establishing as many rules and bureaucratic procedures as possible to mimic the social structures they’d grown up with. In many ways, international youth have done the very same thing. Reflecting the massive bureaucracy that is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and in many ways the organizational models of the more dominant youth delegations (Australia, Canada, Europe), the International Youth Delegation has adopted a basic structure to regiment the process of advancing a collective youth voice during the negotiations.
Where Golding concerns himself with degeneration, I’m concerned with stagnation. Are young people building a governing structure that suffocates the very vitality and functionality of a youth delegation? Are we building a structure that leads to the same fragmentation seen in the negotiation rooms?
Pass the conch shell, please.
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Before college, I never thought of myself as an environmental activist. I became interested in environmentalism soon after arriving at Georgetown, where I met Jesse Scharff and Nels Vulin. Two guys from Oregon, they exposed me to a new perspective on the world and how we treat it. Together, we started Georgetown’s chapter of Campus Climate Challenge, and since then I haven’t spent a day without thinking about the climate crisis, a new energy policy, and the like.
What keeps you motivated
