Philippe Zeller, France’s Ambassador at large for climate change, Asia and Oceania.
Philippe Zeller, France’s Ambassador at large for climate change, Asia and Oceania.
The December UN Climate Change conference in Paris offers a last chance to reach a deal that would keep global warming from reaching risky levels, says UN climate chief Christiana Figueres. But with greenhouse gasses projected to rise to more than 4 Celsius, can countries even make the necessary cuts? And how will the Paris talks succeed when previous conferences have failed to come up with any concrete pledges? Here to answer these questions is France’s Ambassador at large for climate change for Asia and Oceania, Philippe Zeller.
Original Podcast : http://www.bfm.my/philippe-zeller-what-next-at-the-december-climate-change-talks.html
Finally, we have come to the end of the ASEAN Power Shift conference. Time flew by really quickly and before knowing it, it was time to leave Singapore to return home. Despite the short period of time, delegates and participants certainly took away a handful of knowledge and experience that would be useful in their future undertakings. Presenting you a write up of the last day by Rachel Loh
As the last day of APS dawned upon us, the sense of urgency to complete our youth position paper was at its peak. We began the day discussing every aspect of the drafted position paper within the Malaysian Youth Delegation, just like “picking fleas off dogs” as our team member, Thomas would have put it. We went through the entire paper, discussed and nitpicked on every single detail to ensure that all the clauses were acceptable.
Once everything was agreed upon within our group, we returned to the conference room to begin our working assembly with the rest of the delegations. We spent most of our time making amendments to the clauses. Since it was a collaborative position paper to represent the voices of youths all around ASEAN countries, it was of utmost importance for all delegations to come to a consensus with the clauses in the position paper. We were really hopeful to have the paper completed by the end of the session but even at our full efficiency we only managed to discuss some portions of our paper. Nevertheless, we thought that it was important to focus on quality over quantity. Seeing that there will be opportunity to finish our paper in the near future, we looked forward to contributing our time and effort and meeting our ASEAN friends again. It was truly wonderful to see how passionate and strong-willed many of the delegates were to complete this regional position paper.
Youth from ASEAN
Finally, we concluded ASEAN Power Shift 2015 with the ASEAN Cultural Appreciation Night where delegations performed and entertained everyone with their very professional dancing skills. After a night of dancing away, we left for home not just with a greater understanding of policy making but also of ourselves and each other. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the organizers, volunteers, delegates and participants for making our experience such a fruitful one and we hope to see you in the near future!
#MYD15 – Malaysian Youth Delegation – Malaysian youth climate movement at international United Nations climate conferences, UNFCCC, participants will be mentored and hold engagements with various climate expert bodies and dialogue with Malaysian policy makers and negotiators.
#ASEANPOWERSHIFT – A conference gathering youths from 10 ASEAN countries with the focus on finding pragmatic and possible solutions to tackle climate change and empower youths with creative skills and knowledge to initiate their own actions.
Moving into day two at the ASEAN Power Shift! The Malaysian delegates started the day early with a brief meeting on what to look forward in drafting the National Position Paper in the policy track with other delegates. While that happened, the other session was focused on knowledge track in policy, media and communications and creative activism.
Policy track is an avenue where delegates from ASEAN meet and engage in deeper discussion, to voice out their stand and to achieve a consensus on what to include in the draft before submitting our position paper. Four main topics are being looked into, adaptation, mitigation, capacity building and climate finance. During the policy track, we listened to concerns and suggestions from delegates of the 10 ASEAN countries. It was an interesting yet challenging session as everyone has different point of reference and understanding towards the topic being discussed. One of the biggest take away from the policy track is that we learned so much more about the problems that our neighboring countries are facing. After listening to other perspective, we discussed the possible efforts that could be made to solve problems.
On the other hand, knowledge tracks comprise of talks presented on various topics related to climate change. There were many enriching presentation that were carried out, covering topics such as climate change and food security in Southeast Asia, creative activism, understanding INDC and what it means to ASEAN, utilizing art into environmental activism, leveraging social media to create change, media and communication, and restoring carbon sink as a mitigation measures. Experts from respective fields had an engaging session with the audience. Questions from students, activists, volunteers and concerned citizen were raised and it provided a fresh perspective in the subject discussed.
The last session of the day was a plenary lecture of Tri-partite strategy in ASEAN towards combating climate change. The knowledge, experience and expertise of representative from government, private sector and non-governmental party were shared to the participants and delegates. We were introduced to the utilization of green building designs, sustainable urban planning, youth effort in environmental effort, the inclusion of environmental protection activities in school, and governmental support against climate change action in Singapore. There was also an emphasis on individual effort in creating cumulative impact in our countries, Earth hour was an example raised frequently in creating action.
The Malaysian delegates ended the day with a group meeting to further discuss on their views and thoughts on their respective daily learning experience, be it in policy or knowledge track. We talked about areas to further enhance and improve on policy track tomorrow, to hopefully produce a well-represented youth position paper. It was definitely a productive day of learning and working with everyone!
#MYD15 – Malaysian Youth Delegation – Malaysian youth climate movement at international United Nations climate conferences, UNFCCC, participants will be mentored and hold engagements with various climate expert bodies and dialogue with Malaysian policy makers and negotiators.
#ASEANPOWERSHIFT – A conference gathering youths from 10 ASEAN countries with the focus on finding pragmatic and possible solutions to tackle climate change and empower youths with creative skills and knowledge to initiate their own actions.
How lucky that the nine Malaysians youths are to be able to join the first ever ASEAN Power Shift happening in Singapore. While everyone is busy mingling around and gaining new knowledge from the various activities and sessions organized, the day quickly came to an end.
The first daily update is brought to you by our one and only Mohammad Shakirin Bin Shahrul Jamal or rather just Shak for short.
MYD or The Malaysian Youth Delegation is made up of 23 youths who hail from Malaysia, just like you and me. They are just like Abu and Ah Chai or Siti and Kumar or Mei mei and Jane… you get the idea. The point that needs to be emphasized here is that, we are no children of rock stars or the VVIP, we do not possess any superhuman powers, and no, we are not rich nor influential like the Stark’s family.
The MYD was formed because each of us carried something small and invisible within us–a burning pinch of determination and passion to create a just, safe, and livable future for all. We pay attention to issues closed to heart such the climate, the environment and the carbon footprints left by the generations alive today. There is no doubt that many others agree on advocating for climate change and the environment, in fact, there are even more that are working in the same direction as where we are heading. For us, we want to be the voice that sings the song in everyone’s heart. By taking the initiative and lead, we want to encourage others to join in the fight for a sustainable future.
Ever since the official announcement of our success in the selection to join the MYD, we have held meetings and trainings, carried out surveys and even attended an interview with Traxx FM, a local radio station! We do all this because we wish to do a terrific job in presenting to you LIVE UPDATES at national conferences such as the ASEAN Power Shift 2015 that is happening tomorrow! Not only that, we want to do an awesome coverage of the pre-event, during-event and even post-event of the United Nations climate conferences, UNFCCC in Paris , France. We are acting in solidarity with frontline communities in Malaysia and across the globe to seek solutions to some of the biggest challenges humanity has ever faced.
While we strive to sharpen our skills in various fields (e.g. marketing, editing, fundraising, etc.) to bring the best stories to you, not only you can stay tune to our stories on this website, you can share them with your friends and family on your Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms to spread the awareness. If you want to gain some experience in what we do and learn a tip or two, join us during our training series organized by Power Shift Malaysia!
It is cruel fight against rapid development and massive environmental destruction, but with your full support, we can stand tall and proud in the eyes of the world and fight braver than ever to pursue justice for all that is suffering from the effects of climate change.
p/s: Remember to stay tune to our daily updates on ASEAN Power Shift (APS) happening 24-26th of July and keep the discussion active! Send us any questions you haveto our Twitter account @Powershiftmsia or comment belowand we will try to get it answered as soon as possible!
Also, we would like to thank everyone who has shown us their great support in everything that we do, including the recent survey to gather opinions about Climate Change. We have produced a report summary of our findings and it will be used during the Policy Track at APS! Once again, a sincere THANK YOU to all!
Before we forget, let’s introduce the members of MYD at APS!
Bottom row (from left): Rachel Loh, Amalen Sathananthar, Lai Yoke Hwa (Thomas), Merryn Chong Top row (from left): Chua Wan Ji, Low Pau Ling (Roxanne), Tan Mei Peng (Jolene), Mohammad Shakirin Bin Shahrul Jamal, FK Bella Septiarani, Oi Yen Tse (Emily),
#MYD15 – Malaysian Youth Delegation – Malaysian youth climate movement at international United Nations climate conferences, UNFCCC, participants will be mentored and hold engagements with various climate expert bodies and dialogue with Malaysian policy makers and negotiators.
#ASEANPOWERSHIFT – A conference gathering youths from 10 ASEAN countries with the focus on finding pragmatic and possible solutions to tackle climate change and empower youths with skills and knowledge to initiate their own actions.
More often than not, youths are perceived to be incapable, illiterate and immature to be able to make proper decisions. However, one particular youth organization network called YOUNGO is the group that you can entrust to make informed decisions in the UNFCCC intergovernmental process. This is the bunch of youths who holds true to being the guardian of our planet earth and will stand strong in protecting it for the future generation. Each and every YOUNGO member do not simply represent a single nation but they represent the global youth community fighting against climate change as a unity.
Photocredits by tcktcktck.org
“I represent all future generations yet to be born.”
“I represent the billions of children to be born before 2050.”
“I represent over 50% of the world’s population alive today.”
So please do not neglect us.
Continue reading to learn more about YOUNGO, the official youth constituency at UNFCCC.
Youth (Children and young people) are believed to be the key players in reaching innovative, inspiring and ambitious climate change solution. In fact, youth have been actively involved in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) since COP 5 in Bonn.
To date, the idea of youth constituency status was first discussed at COP10 in Buenos Aires. Prior to Conferences of Parties (COP 15), the secretariat granted a provisional observer constituency status to admit youth non-governmental organisations (YOUNGO). As per definition by the UNFCCC secretariat, constituency has a functional role in the climate change negotiation process as a management tool. This status allow youth not only to strengthen their presence during negotiations process but also take part in it as a stakeholder. To make thing clear, YOUNGO is not an organisation but rather an official youth constituency status in UNFCCC. The objective of YOUNGO is youth empowerment
As a constituency, YOUNGO is given the opportunity to address the plenary and high level segment of a COP/CMP. YOUNGO have additional privileges to make official statements and provide technical and policy inputs to negotiation groups during the plenaries. They also invited to attend workshops taking place in between sessions and meet with officials of the Convention such as Chairs of the subsidiary bodies and the COP Presidency.
YOUNGO play an important role in becoming the conduit for the exchange of official information between youth and the secretariat. Focal points are representatives in charge of communicating with the secretariat of the UNFCCC on behalf of youth during negotiation. Besides, YOUNGO assisted the secretariat in ensuring an effective youth participation to an intergovernmental meeting. Besides, it also promote youth participation in specific projects at the local and national levels such as education, mitigation, adaptation and technology transfer. It also coordinated young people’s interaction at sessions including convening constituency meetings, organising meetings with officials, providing names for the speakers list and representation at official function
Starting in COP 11/CMP 1, youth have organised meetings called “Conferences of Youth (COY)” prior to the sessions of the COP/CMP. The annual COY provides a solidarity platform to bring young people from around the world to learn about UNFCCC, building networks and equip themselves in building capacity in participating in the UNFCCC negotiation process. COY is the main summit of the YOUNGO constituency. COY 11 will be held at 26th November 2015
Aside from COY, the youth continue to engage in the negotiation process through various activities. YOUNGO co-organises Young and Future Generation’s Day during the COP/CMP which will feature a series of youth-led events, exhibits, interviews, media stunts and etc. These events provide opportunities for the youth to showcase their project implemented, present a report they have written and even performing arts.
Last but not least, youth participation has brought moral and equity based values as well as transparency to the negotiations.
