The bus drove up to the convention center yesterday, and we
parked in a dirt parking lot next to the main garage for the convention center.
They have you enter the parking garage, which is a building that looks as if
giant white vines are creeping up the side. Once in the garage, they have you
enter a hallway and you take an escalator down to a security station. A
standard security procedure is conducted. You walk passed the registration
booths, and get your ID scanned at which point you are allowed to make the
journey to the convention center under ground. It is about a tenth of a mile to
the actual convention center, and you take escalators up to the main level.
Taking
the escalators up for the first time was overwhelming. I stepped off of the
escalator and was at the end of a magnificent building. The main concourse is
enormous, and monstrous sculpted tree limbs leap out of the ground to hold the
ceiling in place, which is about four stories above my head. Art and monitors
scatter the conference center as you follow the pack of people to the main
foyer. The foyer has huge banners in a deep calming blue reading “7 billion
people, 1 challenge, count me in,” a rhetoric I do not think many embrace. In
the center is a two story iron sculpture of a spider. People weave in and out
of its legs and gasp in awe of the unique art display. Through glass pane doors
you enter a room with a pond like setting. A rainbow lighted pan of water spans
a large area of the room and above skylights illuminate the room and hanging
from the skylight are giant green leaf shaped molds. The building spans acres
and acres of land.
Delegates
and negotiators swarm around you as you are trying to take everything in.
Dozens of different languages are being spoken around you at all points of
time. Media are stalking the outside of groups waiting for the right moment to
take a picture, and you feel lost in a sea of noise. It was incredibly
overwhelming and a little concerning because I did not even think I was going
to be able to find the sessions in a building this large let alone understand
what was going on. To tell you the truth for all of the first day and part of
today this continued to be a problem.
The
whole first day I sat, listened, and followed veterans around the conference
just trying to get a grasp of what was going on around me. There are so many
interest groups, policy discussions, open and closed meetings, press
conferences, and educational sessions that it is no wonder to me that not much
is produced in these two weeks of meetings. I am a newbie though so all this
confusion is not really a problem for those that have been at this for awhile
so do not take that last comment too seriously. Information washed over me all
day, and I know I learned a lot, but by the end of the day I was not really
sure what I had accomplished. To be honest it was not a whole lot, but by
today, the second day, I actually started developing strategies, asking the
right questions and getting into the grove of things. I am a kind of sink or
swim person, and I always want to be Michael Phelps and nothing less. We do not
meet with our delegates until later in the week so I have some time to collect
my thoughts and really get to understand what is happening hopefully. I know I
will not get everything, or be anywhere close to knowing everything in these
next two weeks, I am not sure I will even have all the acronyms down for
different programs by then, but it is a work in progress..
So
that is how I am feeling and what is sticking out to me right now. A lot of
this is emotional reactions to the situation. As I go through the negotiations
I am sure it will develop into refection of the content of the negotiations
more. I realized though that I have not described why I am here, how I was
chosen and what I am doing here really though.
I
was chosen as a representative of the Sierra Club through the Sierra Student
Coalition (SSC). I applied for the position in January and was notified in
March that I was chosen as one of the 14 youth representatives for the Sierra
Club. Upon receiving the position I was designated with the role of Sierra Club
liaison, and I was to update the Sierra Club with what strategies, messaging
and initiatives that the SSC was going to be working on. While at the
conference my role has changed slightly. I am working as a youth delegate in an
NGO to lobby delegates, specifically the US delegate into supporting climate
policy more, enhancing funding, and to participating in more programs to combat
climate change. In addition to this, the delegation I am working in is really
working on engaging people at home via the Rapid Response Network and media outlets.
I
am personally working on two other initiatives. One is the Part of the Solution
Campaign, which is essentially positively showing how countries, people, and
corporations are all part of the solution, and then challenging them to do
more. I am also working on the forest issues, although that has been more of a
bumpy road because we are all new on the committee.
A
couple really cool things have happened here that I quickly want to highlight
given I have been behind in blogging due to the fact that I have been working
on homework. 1) I was able to go to a talk with Johnathan Pershing, one of the
US lead delegates 2) I might get to train young people in Europe and other
places about environmental campaigning and organizing 3) I was able to see the
Deputy Prime Minister of Qatar Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah in a room with
about 50 other youth. Ok I think that is all.
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