Today is a brand new experience for me as I have accompanied Emily to lodge a police report on her lost phone instead of attending Conference of Parties (COP21). Might as well grab this opportunity to have a short city-visit.
When we arrived at Police Station near Gare Du Nord, it took us quite a while to communicate effectively with the police officer due to language barrier. The reporting process took longer than we have expected. Therefore, we have decided to pay a second visit in the evening. While rushing back to COP21 venue, I stopped by a vendor booth to buy a doughnut bun filled with custard cream. Even though it looked common, I will never forget the taste of my first bite. It was simply delightful and delicious! This makes me start wondering whether every Parisian is an expert baker.
We managed to rush back to COP21 venue and attended the Subsidiary Body of Implementation (SBI), informal consultation for national adaptation plan (NAP). As a yellow badge holder, I am grateful to attend this particular session. It was opened to both observers and parties. The session started with an opening speech by the co-chair. This was followed by other formalities whereby countries’ negotiators will agree to cooperate with co-chair to ensure every decision making process reflects honesty and straightforwardness.
The negotiation started to become intense when ‘Para 4’ Green Climate Fund was discussed. Based on the first version of draft decision, Green Climate Fund is only accessible to the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Small Island Developing States (AOSIS) and African states. On the other hand, other developing countries which are moving towards sustainable development are not eligible for this funding. Countries from Global South and working group such as “G77 and China” raised their concerns about this paragraph and demanded for text revision. However, this issue has been postponed to the next meeting due to time constraint.
In my opinion,‘Para 4’ can be described as a deliciously sweet yet poisonous apple. The reason behind is if LDCs accept this temptful offer, it may weaken the bond and trust of ‘G77 and China’ working group. G77 and China was established in 1964 by 133 members (majority are LDCs) which aims to establish a common negotiation positions to promote their collective economic interest. It is undeniable that LDCs required great amount of fundings. However, without a strong coalition between developing countries, developed countries will WIN the battle as self-differentiation is less likely their main concern.
I think “Common But Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR)” is one of the most crucial cornerstones of universal agreement. Developing countries would be able to achieve sustainable development with the receive of technology, finance and capacity building. In conclusion, I hope that all participated countries which fall under the convention are able to fulfil their obligations. Climate change is a global issue that need to be solved globally.
“Don’t ever think words that are not exist in the agreement is not part of the solution, solution for climate change is broad”. – Christiana Figueres
Christinana Figures
I have decided to attend this session as I am very curious about the major concerns of different Civil Society Organisation (CSO) which attended COP21. Before the session started, I met with a person from Mediators Beyond Borders, who is doing mediation for negotiations. This is my first encounter and it sounds really cool to be part of the conflict management and dispute resolution for negotiations. Never thought there will be a language-based organisation for this matter.
The session started with voices from the floor. Climate Action Network (CAN) raised up the accessibility issue for observers to enter closed meetings once again. The Executive Secretary (ES) responded that currently spin-off meetings have been webcasted and overflow rooms were opened for contact groups meeting.
In addition, observers have access to the documents. I just can’t help wondering why the document isn’t open to public. Are they treating observers just like public in terms of document accessibility? When President Fabius repeatedly mentioned negotiation process should be transparent, inclusive, openness, and trust in several plenary, it created a conflict with the present situation. Fortunately, President Fabius is planning to engage with observers. Let’s hope for a better engagement between both sides.
Executive Secretary (ES) mentioned that the recent contact group meeting was suspended. This is to allow adequate time for negotiators and observers to read through latest release of text.
On behalf of YOUNGO, Lastrina raised question on how can youth & other NGO help to speed up the process in the next 24 hours. She asked if there is any possibility of arranging any meet up with negotiators to seek for inputs. Executive Secretary (ES) replied that conversation with negotiators is normally done during coffee session and casual meet ups. There are only a few delegations who have included youth in their national delegation this year. YOUNGO can lobby further regarding this issue.
She announced that Paris agreement will be adopted in Paris on next FRIDAY (11/12/15) and signed at NY next year. Therefore, Friday should be recognised as a “stay tuned” element by everyone on the floor.
In regards to this matter, I have personally met with a few youths from different countries especially those from developing and least developed countries. They were facing difficulties engaging or even contacting their home negotiation team. I felt unfair for them. I believe YOUNGO and UNFCCC secretariat could push harder in solving this problem.
Lastly, Executive Secretary (ES) explained that the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform (ADP) hasn’t reach a solution yet. Some issues are moving forward quicker than before. However, the speed needs to be moderated in order to achieve a comprehensive agreement.
Once again, Christiana emphasized that “Don’t ever think words that are not exist in the agreement is not part of the solution, solution for climate change is broad”.
The #COP21 Asian Youths Meet Up was held at Wen Zhou Restaurant. Interestingly (and weird), there are so many different Wen Zhou Restaurants around Paris. So here’s what happened:
While trying to organise this dinner I had decided with a few others that we should hold it at an affordable restaurant as we did not want to burden everyone with the cost of eating at an expensive restaurant which might not fit everyone’s budget. After doing some research we found a quaint little restaurant called Wen Zhou located at the edge of Chinatown in Rue du Maire. We then proceeded to book the place and coordinated everyone to this location. However, when we checked online, we got confused with its location. It showed us a different location in Rue de Bellville – about 15 minutes train ride away from Ru de Maire. So we changed the venue address to the new one.
We then proceed to coordinate all the Asian Youth that we had met over the past week. I sought help from Juliana, a Singaporean staying in Paris, to make the booking at Wen Zhou because they couldn’t speak English, making booking over the phone was difficult. So with Juliana’s help, we booked the Wen Zhou Restaurant. Based on the blog I discovered about Wen Zhou, the affordable Chinese Restaurant was in fact at Rue du Maire. but after some confusion we thought we had the wrong address as Google indicated that Wen Zhou was at Rue de Beleville. We went with the latter. We posted on the Asian emailing list that I had compiled from Conference of Youth 11 (#COY11) the previous week. I felt quite happy with that. We had received good response – dates and times were decided and the final booking at Wen Zhou was made.
The day of the Asian Youth Meet Up arrived, and this Wen Zhou at Rue de Belleville turned out to be a 15-minutes walk from where we, the MYDs, were staying in Paris. The meet up was at 7 P.M. so I decided to head out earlier at 6.15 P.M. to confirm booking and coordinate the space. As I got out to the street, I forgot to mention this was in the heart of Chinatown, I found a Wen Zhou Restaurant – with a blue sign (take note of this). I went in and asked them but they could hardly speak English, only Mandarin and French. They said no booking were made and that I probably meant another Wen Zhou down the road. So I went along, kept walking and couldn‘t find it.
One of the many Wen Zhou Restaurants.
Irritated and slightly angry, I thought they had sent me on a wild goose chase. I proceeded back to the blue-signed Wen Zhou to give the person a piece of my mind. As I was about 5 shops away, I stumbled onto the address 24,Rue de Belleville which was the location based on good ol’ Google I had shared with everyone on the email thread, and lo and behold it was THE WEN ZHOU Restaurant! (Or so I thought) And it was CLOSED! I was shocked – it looked like there were more than one Wen Zhou. Literally within 5 shops apart there were two restaurants with the same name. I panicked, not knowing what to do as the restaurant I booked was closed! So I ran back to blue-signed Wen Zhou, noticed that there was a lot of space and proceeded back to Wen Zhou 24 to redirect people to the blue-signed one. A girl named Nicole from Singapore came by and I told her about the situation and she agreed to help me welcoming our guests at the blue-signed Wen Zhou. I had my note pad with me so I wrote a sign to redirect people to blue-signed Wen Zhou but with no tape or any means to stick it on the door, I waited. More and more people arrived and I redirected them to the new venue. At about 7.30 P.M. Thomas from MYD arrived and helped me to look for tape at nearby stores. He found it and we put up the sign and we went to have dinner with the rest.
During the gathering of 24 Asians, there was a lot of networking going on. Our topics of discussions ranged from what we should do to move forward to how we should focus on generating collaborative efforts instead of focusing on problems. It was at this exact moment I found out that Lastrina from Singapore was at another Wen Zhou with about 13 people. They were at Rue du Maire! The ACTUAL Wen Zhou we had made our booking at! I was in panic mode once again. I announced this to the group and they, who were by now energetic from the all those optimistic chats, said “Let’s go to them!” and so we did. We lost some members on the way because they were too tired and decided to head back. The ORIGINAL When Zhou was only 15 minutes by train and the station was nearby the blue-signed When Zhou we were at.
At the actual Wen Zhou Restaurant we planned, we met up with the other 13 delegates but by then it was way too crowded so we decided to head to a nearby bistro.
At the bistro I found out that Juliana had realised that the Wen Zhou she had booked is not the one with the Googled address I found but instead it was at Rue de Maire and had emailed us at 7.10 P.M of the actual location. So those that ended up at Rue de Maire were actually those who left COP21 after 7.10 P.M. They had seen the email and went to the right venue.
It was an interesting experience organising this Asian Meet Up. It was nice hearing the sounds of Asian languages after a while. The meet up really did boost my spirit to make myself be more useful and more involved in COP21, even though there were some confusions. We still managed to get together, talked about a lot of different topics and most importantly, we had fun being connected in a foreign land.
The other group of the Asian Youth Meet Up
The Asian Youth Meet Up turned out to be successful despite everything that could go wrong, as we managed to bring together a lot of people from different countries.
Thus, the Discovery of Wen Zhou in Paris came to an end.
When do you feel proud in the COP21? When the room clapped for Malaysian Negotiator!!!!!
Voiced on the behalf of the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDC), Prof. Gurdial condemned the efforts and sincerity of the developed countries on coming together to curb global climate crisis. The developed countries’ reluctance and failure of doing their part in cutting carbon emission (providing developing countries financial and technical support) has always been the main problem of forming a legal binding agreement on climate change. In the negotiation language, the Principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibilites (CBDR) is not accepted by many developed nations.
“Developing countries are doing their fair share (on climate change) while the developed countries are far from their responsibilities. They (developed countries) say they want to take the lead but when come to the text, they bracket (means phrase is still under discussion, not yet accepted) everything, then developing countries have to take the lead. There is no sincerity!”
This certainly is a resounding smack on the promise-breaking developed countries. The justified intervention won the applause from the full-house observer room!
As a Malaysian, I felt very proud of our leaders. Not only the down-to-earth and daring negotiators, I also very grateful of our Minister of Natural Resources and Environmental, YB Dato Sri Dr. Haji Wan Junaidi bin Tuanku Jaafar for granting us the “Party Overflow” badges. We thank him for enhancing the transparency and involvement of youth in the policy making processes, as well as for being open-minded and generous to be the first Minister who approved the “pink” badges to the Malaysian youths.
ASEAN, GEC: Towards Low Carbon and Climate Resilient ASEAN Community Post-2015
Despite the countless negotiation meetings and hectic schedule, Dr Gary Theseira, our respectable Head of the Malaysian Delegation in COP21 has spoken in the “Towards Low Carbon and Climate Resilient ASEAN Community Post-2015”, particularly on the “Cooperation among the ASEAN Countries on Climate Change”. “(This is) new era of sharing on a number of (different) levels,” said Dr. Gary. Five points of the ASEAN collaboration on climate change: 1. Sharing on information – countries have been sharing the information about the threats such as the rising sea level and the extreme events, at very detailed levels. Furthermore, the Southeast Asia countries have their diversity in terms of climate change action. For example, not all of them do carbon labelling. In this case, Thailand which made a good position in carbon labelling (Thailand Greenhouse Gas Management & Asian Institute of Technology) can share their knowledge and experience with their neighbouring nations. 2. Sharing expertise – different ASEAN countries have different forte in addressing climate change. For instance, Thailand has good education program whilst Singapore has invested a lot of effort on private sectors. Exchange in expertise will improve the capacity of each country.
3. Collaboration of monitoring and hotspots researching – A number of joint programs related to forest and natural areas have been organized between countries, for example, the Borneo forest. When two countries work together, there will be much lesser trouble on forest management and can prevent biodiversity trafficking. 4. Familiarize each other with climate finance and funds – Not all ASEAN countries are familiar with the private sectors of financing and climate. Malaysia’s Green Building Index, which is a monitor system of the building’s lifecycle (eg, carbon emission), is not common in the Southeast Asia region. Therefore, sharing of information should be done to improve communication and knowledge. 5. Drafting the Joint Statement on Climate Change – Although the ASEAN is not a negotiation bloc in the COP21, we have been working as a group to produce the joint statement for 2 consecutive years. This has strengthened the bond among the countries and showed that they are taking it very serious, as the ASEAN members are vulnerable. Food security, indigenous people are important yet fragile in these nations.
After much more anticipated, it is now DAY 3 in Conference of Youth (COY), Tokyo. The day starts with an important sharing session on Day 2 activities. I have shared my reflection on the Planetary Health Flim. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2tctLlNycI Mamtaz’s Story” – The fight for climate justice in the Bay of Bengal. Click on the link to watch the video. After watching the video, you may start thinking how am I blessed with what I have today and owning a sense of appreciation. Most of the people never thought about how others are suffering while we are constantly exploring our resources. Nowadays, generation do not even know or care about how the water, food and basic necessity come from. The answer might be water come from the tap, food come from supermarket and electricity come from turning on the switch. From this video, each of every individual can do our parts to save those countries suffering from climate change. It can always be a simple action – Monday Veggie Day, Drive Less and Walk, Save every drop of water, etc. After that, we slowly spread it to friends, family and local community. When there is a change in local community, it will be much more effective to urge government moving toward climate actions.
We continued the Youth of East Asia Action Agenda (YEAAA). It was the final round discussion to adopt the YEAAA Declaration. We managed to reach a consensus between participants on the topics discussed in the earlier YEAAA Session. There is also plan to submit the declaration to ASEAN youth, ASEAN and translate to different languages to have a better understanding. Since COY11 in Japan is the fastest team to come out with a declaration, the final text of declaration is not announced because other local COY are still working on the manifesto. However, the final manifesto will be compiled by COY team in Paris and submit to COP21.
The most exciting moment for COY 11, Tokyo is finally here. EARTH PARADE 2015 in TOKYO! This is the kind of parade which we usually saw it in the news, newspaper and TV especially in developed countries. Now, I have a chance to experience it myself. I am simply amazed by the number of crowds who joined the parade because this is the first year an Earth Parade is happening in Tokyo. http://climate-action-now.jp/parade2015/ . The event started with several stage performances at Hibiya Open-Air Concert Hall. Two representatives from COY 11 have given a speech to the audience. It is an honour that youth is given an opportunity to voice up their concern about climate change in public. After listened to the theme song of “Earth-Parade 2015 in Tokyo, we started the march in TOKYO areas. I hold the bunting of Power Shift Malaysia during the march. This comes along with EARTH PARADE CHANT as below:
I say SOLAR you say POWER
I say WIND you say POWER
I say PEOPLE you say POWER
Save the Planet, Protect the Climate!
Climate Action Now!
No more coal No more oil,
Keep your carbon in the soil.
I say climate…you say justice!
I say No…you say COAL / Nuclear
Many Japanese are standing at the side lane and looking at US. We managed to catch the attention of people and most importantly raise awareness. I am motivated, inspired and looking for continuity of such events in future. May be we can have an EARTH PARADE in Malaysia! Lastly, I hope to see more movement from local communities and pushing pressure for world leaders to act against climate change. Think about your children, grandchildren, learnt from history and CHANGE for a better tomorrow.
