![My time in Paris prior to Opening of COP 21]()
by admin | Jan 3, 2016 | Blog, MYD2015, UNFCCC
26th November 2015
Together with my team, we departed from Malaysia in late evening. I was so excited because this day has finally arrived! This is also my 1st time traveling on an Airbus A380. One of my highlights during the flight is, the food, or to be specific – bread! The bread was warm and soft when served. It tasted even more delicious with butter melted inside. *heavenly delicious*
27th November 2015
We reached Paris 6.00 am in the morning. We queued up for an hour for security check. Due to the Paris havoc that happened a week ago, I thought the security check would be very stringent. To ensure a smooth check, I prepared all relevant documents such as accommodation receipt, accreditation letter from MYD, my funder – The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC) and acknowledgement letter from Embassy of Malaysia in France.
After we passed the border control, we met Scott from Northwestern University in Chicago. He is studying journalism and wanted to shoot a short documentary about youth activism cropping up in response to the climate talks. His partner, Miranda was also in Paris and we met her shortly at COY11. From now until 4th December, they will be filming us.
We went to 11th Conference of Youth (COY11) by taking train. We were a bit clumsy as both our hands were carrying luggage. We need to thank Scott as he helped to reduce some of our burden.
We reunited with one of our team members there as he arrived Paris earlier than us. After touring around for half an hour, we had our vegetarian lunch, served with a very sweet apple. Too bad I forgot to take a picture of it.
After lunch, we had an ASEAN Youth meet up session. Approximately 30 ASEAN youth attended this session. During the meet up, everyone was given a chance to talk about their passion in combating climate change. As youths, we really hope our voice would be heard.
We headed to the apartment after the session ended. An instruction was given by the host prior to our arrival. I felt like playing “Escape Room” because it took some time for us to locate the keys. The apartment was cozy and fully furnished. No complaint!
28th November 2015
Today I am not attending Conference of Youth because I made up my mind to stay in the apartment and do a little bit of reading regarding Malaysia’s INDC.
In the afternoon, my team and I decided to visit Paris De L’AVENIR. One of the event by Paris De L’AVENIR is an exhibition that consist of green innovative technologies that helps in curbing GHG emission. The event also featured immersed discovery of the future Paris around 4 themes which are energy, mobility and logistics, resource and recycling and urban development. The exhibition is located very near to our apartment, so we walked.
Along the river bank, each of the exhibition is located in a cargo container. I not sure about the origin of the cargo containers but I hope the organizers did consider re-using used/old container instead of using a brand new one.
Among all the exhibitors, there are 2 new innovations that really gave me a WOW impression. The 1st one is called a shower loop which is able to reduce 10 times water and energy usage. The state-of-art is kind of simple. There is an adapter that captures hot water from the drain, purified it with filter and pumps it directly for bath. They also claimed that quality of the recycled water exceeds both USA and EU standards for drinking water. In other words, you can also drink the water while bathing.
The second one is the production of “green” hydrogen. Hydrogen can be obtained by electrolysis process by applying electric current. Conventional ways of producing hydrogen gas required the burning of fossil fuel to generate electricity. In a plain text, it is a “dirty” hydrogen.
The production of “green” hydrogen is by using electricity generated from renewable energy such as solar and water. In my opinion, hydro dam should not be relied on because building a dam required a change in landscape and this will affect the ecosystem and also, intrude the land right of people. Whereas solar power would be more promising. With the advancement of technology, hydrogen can replaces fossil fuel in the future. Hydrogen is a good fuel because it does not produce any GHG during combustion. It emits water vapor as its side product which does not bring negative impact to the environment.
29th November 2015
I was getting mild sore throat. This affected my mood. I went down to the foyers and did some reflection. I realized that I did gain lot of new insights and knowledge on UNFCCC and policy tracking after I joined MYD 6 months ago. This cheered me up and motivated me again. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger right?
Lunch was prepared by Amalen. The Nasi Briyani Ayam was indeed delicious yet spicy. I was so tempted to eat more but for the sake of my health, I need to resist. Such a pity. After lunch, we headed to Le Bourget Airport (COP21 venue) to acquire our badges. Surprisingly, the public transport for the day is free of charge, which is marvelous.
Hundreds of pillars can be seen in front of the COP21 main entrance. Each of the pillars featured one country flag. Since COP21 will be attended by leaders from all around the world, security check is unavoidable. The security here is stringent too. To prevent everyone from bringing dangerous fluid, everyone is obligated to take a sip of the water contained in the water bottle. #smart. We were done with our registration in 15 minutes and the badges were securely acquired.
The ADP opening plenary was brought forward to today. Before the plenary start, we spent around 1 hour touring COP21 venue a.k.a Blue Zone. This venue is huge and there are 6 major halls within. During the tour, I was amazed by the Indian delegation pavilion. The layout and decoration of the pavilion totally stood out, so much win.
The ADP opening plenary started at 5 pm. The incoming COP21 President, Laurent Fabius and both of the ADP co-chair (Ahmed Djoghlaf and Daniel Reifsnyder) were delivering their opening speech. They emphasized on the fact that that transparency, trust, openness, involvement of all stakeholder and no surprise give legitimacy and success towards COP21. Albeit the speech sound promising, but things cannot be done without actions. Hence, I hope all the stakeholders can cooperate and work together for the sake for a better future.
Written by: Thomas Lai
Edited by: Merryn Choong
![Bilateral Meetings with International Youth Groups in COP21]()
by admin | Jan 3, 2016 | Blog, MYD2015, UNFCCC
So we have mission to accomplish.
The mission is bilateral meetings with other youth delegations during COP21, to understand what other youth groups are doing in COP and to gain exposure from their experiences. We are newbie and they may have been here for years. I think this exposure is worth an article because it was one of my exciting parts in COP.
Each of the MYD members were in charged of “adopting” a country’s youth coalition and arrange a meeting with them. I was in charge of contacting New Zealand Youth Delegation (NZYD) but it did not happen in the end because they were very occupied and it was a problem to find a mutual free time for all the members. The secured ones include meetings with the United Kingdom Youth Climate Coalition (UKYCC), Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) and Taiwan Youth Climate Coalition (TWYCC).
Fun fact: UKYCC and AYCC have more female members than male, but it is another way round for TWYCC.
UKYCC meeting was our first one on 10th Dec, in green zone. There are around 6 to 8 of them. We were quite excited as we have no experience in handling such big number of participants in such meeting. It was a bit delayed and I tried to take lead and to conduct the flow, just a simple one- introduction from both side on what we did before COP and during COP; then it will be a free Q&A or chatting session. It was fine initially but when it reached the free chatting part, the note taker – Shak got a bit lost because everyone was kinda split into small groups; with various diverse topics. I was sitting in the middle, trying to bridge the gap without spoiling the anticipated conversations, so you could imagine how challenging it was ! :/
The next day, we had lunch with AYCC, there were only 4 of them. Conversation was much converged given the advantage of us seated in a roundtable (now I know the significant role seatings play in a discussion!).
The session with TWYCC was in the evening and we did some serious walking to our meeting venue. TWYCC intended to interview and film some of us, resulting our meeting started a bit late. There are around 4-5 members from TWYCC (not the whole team). However, only 2 of them are the “real” members as the other 2-3 people were from the media team who exclusively worked on recordings and shootings (interesting team structure!). So those are the kind of problems that you would probably face when it comes to bilateral meetings- many things are uncertain- timing; venues; unexpected incidents like delays and number of people who turned up.
Lesson Learnt: It could be better if we could know more about the logistical information beforehand- e.g. number of people attending, so we can find a suitable place to comfortably fit us; and location, whether it is blue zone or green zone (travelling between these 2 places can take 15-20 minutes to and fro).
I personally felt at ease after talking to these bunch of youths because I am not the only one who was overwhelmed and lost in this COP circus; and I am also not the only one who thinks team problem is a shame because that’s what happened to everyone. Most importantly, I learnt from these youth coalitions that they all have a proper structure within the team, so at least they know how to coordinate stuff although they are all moving around individually. Great learning from them! I think this bilateral should be made another MYD traditions for the upcoming batches.
Written by: Emily
Edited by: Wanji
![Conversation with Tun Jeanne Abdullah]()
by admin | Jan 3, 2016 | #PowerShiftMsia, MYD2015
Tun Jeanne A
When Tun Jeanne Abdullah met the three MYD members (Jolene, Thomas, Emily) in Paris Declaration, we ended up chatting passionately about our tropical rainforests (I felt pity for the people waiting in line to talk to her though, we chatted for such a while).
The three of us were presented with the golden chance to meet our honorable former Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Badawi and his spouse, Tun Jeanne Abdullah in The Declaration launching ceremony on the 7 Dec 2015. We were very lucky to get Tun Jeanne’s attention and that was how we ended up being invited by her for a casual chat on the same table. From there, we got to know that Tun Jeanne is the chairman of the Board of Trustee of Tropical Rainforest Conservation Research Centre (TRCRC), who had been working on forestry conservation for the past few years.
She was telling us the beauty and richness of our very own tropical rainforests, specifically on the valuable woods that we have, such as the precious Gaharu timber. Due to many of the illegal loggings and uncontrolled deforestation to make way for palm oil plantation, Malaysia’s timber production has been dwindling. It is a pity when we resolved to importing timbers when our fertile land could produce better quality ones.
Tun Jeanne also pointed out that we could acquire many new insights through learning from the forest, this include the indigenous people’s knowledge on forest management. Hence it is very essential to raise more awareness especially among the people in the urban areas who are quite disconnected with the nature so they will appreciate this golden national asset we have. It is as if there is an entirely untouched chapter on natural rainforest and indigenous knowledge that our people are missing. I understand that more need to be done in this matters and vowed to be doing more in this.
The day we had this conversation became even more meaningful when it was the same day where our Minister of Natural Resources & Environment (NRE) , YB Dato Sri Dr. Haji Wan Junaidi bin Tuanku Jaafar pledged to preserve 50% of our national land as forests with healthy forest and zero deforestation in the COP plenary this morning!
Oh let me share with you an awesome initiative by Tun Jeanne’s founding organisation- Landskap Malaysia, called the “3313” . Anyone can have a tree planted on behalf of them for just RM33 in the organisation’s living collection sites which are either in forest reserves or national parks. The coordinates of the trees planted will be revealed to their contributors and we can visit our trees ! I love this idea as it must be an exciting journey to revisit your own tree and watch them growth throughout the years. Imagine watching it looks so fragile and new and the next time when you come back, it is all tall and hard, offering shade for you (of course that depends on the species).
I found this particular initiative stood out from other tree planting events where they are normally a one-shot session and rarely let people to trace back the trees that they have planted. Plus, if I were to choose, I would prefer to plant my own tree in a real forest than in a city to be honest. To me, replant a forest is more important because of its higher biodiversity value and rich ecosystem services. But of course, fragmented forests and those urban forests should also be retained. As more population is going to stay in cities, it is essential to create more green space which is near to us. Remember, we are also part of the nature!
It was an inspiring evening for me, after all. Tun Jeanne inspired me by her down to earth attitude on doing all these amazing forest conservation work. Most importantly, she is very keen to share her knowledge generously with us- the youth. I am happy to get her acknowledgement and encouragement on what I want to do for the environment. This is definitely a booster for me. I would love to have more conversation with her back in Malaysia later! On a side note, she is a very caring and patient wife to Tun Abdullah Badawi. I found both of them really cute and loving even at this age
☺
Written by: Emily
Edited by: Wanji
![Reflection on Youth Forum in Indonesia Pavilion, COP21]()
by admin | Jan 3, 2016 | #PowerShiftMsia, Blog, MYD2015
Spot me at Youth Forum in Indonesia Pavilion, COP21
While I was still in Malaysia preparing for COP21, I received a short email from Adrian and Lastrina asking if I am keen to share my climate initiatives and experiences for the coming Youth Forum event organized by Indonesian Pavilion in COP21.
Well, the moment I say “Yes” is the day I am glad I did it.
(more…)
![Coffee, Climate and People]()
by admin | Jan 3, 2016 | Blog, MYD2015, UNFCCC
Coffee, Climate and People
I have decided to attend one of the session they organized that is related to Coffee and Climate. I am not a coffee lover but I am curious of how climate change may impacts coffee’s life-cycle?
I decided to grab some of their booklets to read. Based on Coffee Barometer 2014 report prepared by Humanist Institute for Co-operation with Developing Countries (HIVOS), coffee is ranked as one of the world’s most valuable agricultural commodities with 80% of coffee produced in the world is traded internationally amounts to USD 33.4 billion and retail sales may sum up to USD 100 billion.
Apparently, Arabica and Robusta (please learn the difference) are two most commonly produced coffee beans in the world where Arabica are commonly grown at high altitudes in Latin America [including Brazil] and Northeast Africa [accounts for 60% of world production] and Robusta, commonly grown in humid areas at low altitudes in Asia, Western and Central Africa and Brazil [currently encompasses up to 40% of world production]. Four countries dominated the global coffee production, Brazil (35%), Vietnam (15%, world’s largest Robusta coffee produce), Indonesia (9%) and Colombia (7%).
Coffee production provides livelihood for 20 – 25 million farming families. The Barometer report stated coffee is cultivated in more than 80 countries in Central and South America, Africa and Asia. Well, not to be surprised these are the regions the developing countries which are prone to climate-induced disasters.
According to recent research published in Journal Plos One, by 2050, yields of Arabica bean – which accounts for 75 percent of the coffee produced worldwide – in some countries are expected to fall by up to 25 percent. Whereas Uganda produces both coffee beans are also at threat with reduction of suitable land to produce the specific climate growing coffee beans. Coffee needs an annual rainfall of 1500-3000mm. The ideal temperature range for growing coffee is 15-24 degree Celsius for Arabica coffee and 24-30 degree Celsius for Robusta. With the increasing global temperature predicted by IPCC, these coffee beans are facing more heat stress and water shortages.
Sustainability of coffee are becoming one of the dominant factors of brand choice other than consumer’s taste and price quality considerations. This can be verified via the implementation of voluntary standards systems (VSS). The Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA) study confirms that certified coffee and cocoa farms, perform better economically and their farmers are better trained and pursue more environmentally friendly practices in comparison to non-certified farmers. But the success rate depend on local context and the entry cost can be challenging for small holders.
In all coffee producing countries, 70% coffee producers are small scale farmers. They face particular challenges in building their livelihoods from agriculture and in overcoming poverty. Generally, these coffee growers are:-
- Not Well Organized
- Lack of Market Information and Bargaining Power
- Low and Volatile Prices for their Green Beans
- Increasing Production Costs (rising prices of fertilizers, transportation, abour, discourage entrepreneurial activity and necessary long term investments in their farm)
Addressing climate change in the coffee sector and overcoming poverty require enhanced cooperation and communication between various stakeholders (companies, donors, farmers, researchers). Interestingly, in 2010, “The initiative for Coffee & Climate (C&C)” has initiated holistic projects focusing on how coffee production can be improved while simultaneously increasing the coffee resilience of growers in coffee- producing landscapes. They have pioneered four pilots in various regions including Guatemala, Vietnam, Tanzania and Brazil with reaching out to more than 4,000 farmers. These initiatives are also supported by some of the top ten coffee roasters that dominate almost 40% of the coffee consumption in the world; including three largest transnational corporations – Nestle, Mondelez and DE Master Blenders 1753.
Written by: Jolene Journe T.
