![MYD 2018 Retreat Reflection – Ghali Foster]()
by admin | Jul 1, 2018 | #MYD, Blog, MYD2018
The Malaysian Youth Delegation hosted the annual Retreat at EPIC Collective over the weekend of the 28th and 29th April 2018. New members were asked to reflect the activities they took part in, what they learned along the way, and what they took away from the experience. Here’s what our new members had to say:
Ghali Foster
By: Ghali Foster
The day I received the email to join this retreat I was pretty excited. The only thing is I had a fear that I won’t get along with everybody as I don’t have an environmental science background. As the day went on throughout the retreat, the people that I have met and connected with are amazing people. The people from the retreat are a diverse group of fun people from multiple backgrounds with one thing in mind, which is to learn more about climate change policies.
Other than making friends, I have a lot of new information for my brain to process such as many new terms and I have a better idea of what MYD is doing and where our country is at in terms of climate change. The history of climate change is something we should all take note of. It’s a lot of information on how policies are formed that leads up to the current policy which is the Paris Agreement. From the retreat, I also have a better picture of how leaders agree on a policy. It will only work as long as they keep their promise in an effort to undo and reduce the damage. Climate change is definitely driven by human factors. The best part of the retreat was the sharing session from past MYD members who went to the previous COPs. It was insightful as it takes a lot of dedication and effort; days of preparation leading up to the conference.
The things I learned from the retreat is only the surface. I’m prepared to dive deeper into it in the coming months.
![MYD 2018 Retreat Reflection – Pouvalen Seeneevassin]()
by admin | Jul 1, 2018 | #MYD, Blog, MYD2018
The Malaysian Youth Delegation hosted the annual Retreat at EPIC Collective over the weekend of the 28th and 29th April 2018. New members were asked to reflect the activities they took part in, what they learned along the way, and what they took away from the experience. Here’s what our new members had to say:
Pouvalen Seeneevassin
By: Pouvalen Seeneevassin
The Malaysian Youth Delegation (MYD) was an organisation that I had heard of since last year through Azam. I kept hearing about it from other friends who were involved in MYD from campus. It was intriguing, and I wanted to learn more. However, I was hesitant at first because I had never been part of this type of organisation. When I got to know the 2018 applications were opened, I thought I should give it a try.
MYD being actively involved in highlighting climate change got me curious because I have been focusing more towards work involving wildlife conservation. I believe it is good to help out NGOs but ultimately, policies are important on getting action pushed forward on a global scale. UNFCCC has a huge influence and learning about how it functions and delivers is an engaging topic to me.
Coming into the retreat, I was excited to meet new like-minded people. The varying backgrounds and ages that I came across got me perplexed but optimistic in the sense that being from an Environmental Science background, I tend to think people from engineering or business do not pay as much attention to issues like climate change because they would have other issues to tackle. So, right from the start during the introduction I was happy about the cluster of people who were there.
Hearing details about how policies come to be written and how tedious negotiations that sometimes go on overnight can be, I now understand how hard it is to achieve positive change. The MYD retreat helped me get to know the timeline of how UNFCCC has worked to come up with the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement and many more through the workshops. Thomas’ timeline was useful to get a grasp of how things have gone down over the years. It was the perfect summary.
As for the activities. I enjoyed the toilet agreement. It probably is not as simple as it is at COP, but at least we got a small avant-gout as to what negotiations can be like. The insight I got was so much more than I thought, especially when Thomas later on pointed out the positives and negatives of each of the agreements we came up with. Hence, when negotiating, we need to look at all possible perspectives even if it gets tedious.
The retreat was a good experience and I learned so much. I still feel doubtful about whether MYD is right for me, but I want to stick around and find out more.
![MYD 2018 Retreat Reflection – Eudora Yee]()
by admin | Jul 1, 2018 | #MYD, Blog, MYD2018
The Malaysian Youth Delegation hosted the annual Retreat at EPIC Collective over the weekend of the 28th and 29th April 2018. New members were asked to reflect the activities they took part in, what they learned along the way, and what they took away from the experience. Here’s what our new members had to say:
Eudora Yee
By: Eudora Yee
As Adrian has once came to the University of Nottingham to speak about #PowerShiftMsia, a brief knowledge in regards to the Malaysian Youth Delegation (MYD) organisation as well as their main purpose was available. However, this retreat provided more information about the policies that are currently in place in Malaysia, the historical timeline of environmental related policies in an international scale and the work that MYD contributes in the effort to raise awareness and make a change.
The talk given by Ms Lakshmi Lavanya Rama regarding Malaysia and the International Climate Change Policies was especially eye-opening. It not only gave us information as to how policies were constructed, it also provides us some insights into the catalyst that brought about their construction. She gave us an insight into the political power play that exist between the different countries in coming to an agreement on the type and scale of policies to be implemented. It was shown that more often than not, those that are have a more favourable position are often the ones that makes the decisions for everyone regardless of those in less favourable positions such as small developing countries and non-governmental organisations.
The brief on the history of various agreements and policies drawn up by the international community provided by Thomas was also very informative. While difficult to remember all the exact date of construction and implementation and all the different type of policies, the brief did provide a more detailed explanation as to the purpose of each and every policy or agreement and their effects so far in the international effort to mitigate climate change. It was shocking to see that a considerably huge amount of policies and agreements have already been drawn up over the years with varying degrees of success.
Although, the information provided by MYD members with their experiences of participating in COP was the most memorable. It give better insight to the actual type of work that MYD does as well as the hard work that goes into it. It is also great that some members of the home team also spoke about their work here which is equally as significant despite not being there physically in COP.
![MYD 2018 Retreat Reflection – Megat O. Denney]()
by admin | Jul 1, 2018 | #MYD, Blog, MYD2018
The Malaysian Youth Delegation hosted the annual Retreat at EPIC Collective over the weekend of the 28th and 29th April 2018. New members were asked to reflect the activities they took part in, what they learned along the way, and what they took away from the experience. Here’s what our new members had to say:
Megat O. Denney
By Megat O. Denney
When I first arrived at the Malaysian Youth Delegation Retreat, I was not too sure of what to expect. My first experience with the Malaysian Youth Delegation was when I attended one of their workshops in 2017 at Nottingham University, Malaysia prior to COP23 in Bonn, Germany. The workshop gave me a brief overview of the history of the UNFCCC, the treaties, accords and protocols signed, and the concept of the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). The tone of it all was relatively dry and academic, something I expected of a workshop.
The retreat covered this material above and beyond, going into greater detail about the circumstances and impacts certain accords and protocols had on the UNFCCC’s trajectory, and the role that the Malaysian Youth Delegation played in the scheme of it all.
It was surprising yet refreshing to meet a diverse set of people attending the retreat, as not everyone had a background in either international policy or environmental sciences. Instead, there were people from all walks of life. There were artists and business consultants, there were those starting their undergraduate degrees, and those already in the workforce having finished their graduate degrees, but coming together for just one purpose: to participate in climate change action.
Initially I was expecting the retreat to be all about learning the ropes in a corporate setting: what a member of a youth NGO needed to know and what would be required of them to be effective members. I expected a steep learning curve and hours of technical jargon and bureaucratic processes. What I got was the complete opposite. Instead I got a carefully paced out event with ice-breakers and bonding sessions in between sessions of learning. I got a chance to learn the motivations, histories and skillsets of the other members. The anecdotes of the more experienced members gave me an insight into the inner working of the Conference of Parties, an insight I would not have gained by attending the workshops alone.
Overall, the retreat exceeded my own expectations in terms of tone and content. The retreat was far more relaxed than I thought it would be, while simultaneously teaching more than I had expected to learn. I am grateful for the opportunity to attend it, and for my friends at Nottingham University, Malaysia for providing that opportunity.
![MYD 2018 Retreat Reflection – Sharun Beream Nasir]()
by admin | Jul 1, 2018 | #MYD, Blog, MYD2018
The Malaysian Youth Delegation hosted the annual Retreat at EPIC Collective over the weekend of the 28th and 29th April 2018. New members were asked to reflect the activities they took part in, what they learned along the way, and what they took away from the experience. Here’s what our new members had to say:
Sharun Beream Nasir
By Sharun Beream Nasir
The retreat event began with some introduction on what the Malaysian Youth Delegation stands and strives for. Then, we were filled in with more information on the other organisations that were striving for the similar aim as well such as YOUNGO and CAN. Through this session I was exposed to the efforts that were being put in order to achieve climate justice globally and especially through the voice of youths.
Moving on, we had a talk by a WWF representative who briefed us on the current state of Malaysia’s environmental policies and shared her experience when she attended the UNFCCC conference. The talk was an insightful session for me, as I learned a lot of information and had the opportunity to understand the perspectives of different stakeholders regarding the climate issues and negotiations. Throughout the talk, some of the key issues that act as barriers in achieving the solution to mitigate climate change were discussed. The barriers include having too many policies, but less framework that results into a less effective implementation of those policies. Other than that, setting the wrong parameters such as the GDP to measure the progress of climate change mitigation in a country is of yet another flaw.
After that, we had a talk from a representative of the CETDEM company. The talk introduced efforts that are being taken in order to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions in Malaysia by providing the required technology to the TENAGA Berhad company. Last but not least, the day was ended with a great documentary that spurred the spirit in us to make this Malaysian Youth Delegation journey more meaningful and successful.
On the next day, we had a long talk on the history of UNFCCC where I gained new knowledge on the happenings at a global scale when it comes to negotiations between countries. Here we were introduced to the role of global north and global south countries and the progress of climate policies that were either ratified or have failed to be ratified. After that, we had several talks on the experiences of the MYD youth delegators at the last UNFCCC conference. Through the talk I learnt of the hardships and endurance that many individuals had to go through in making the conference a beneficial and productive meeting in the end.
Till this date, we still do not have a strong commitment to combat climate change be it at global or regional scale although the threshold of not exceeding a further 1.5°C of global warming is now approaching us at an alarming state. According to what I have learned, climate change is believed to be a wicked problem as the issue is acknowledged by almost everyone, but the response toward it being rather dim because it is not considered to be as alarming as other natural disasters such as tsunamis or hurricanes. The ‘short-sightedness’ in people to foresee this now approaching calamity is to be blamed on our society. Regardless of all the available information that keep reminding the human nation to act towards the combat against climate change, many of us are unfortunately, choosing to stay heedless.
Since the anthropogenic activities in 1800s, we are now left with a tight carbon budget that will certainly not sustain for any longer with the current greenhouse gas emission that we are putting out. However, by looking at the efforts being put in by nowadays youth by taking part in major conferences such as the UNFCCC, it has really proved to me that we are determined to make a change by taking part in the climate justice journey.
