![Side Event in COP21: Asean collaboration in tackling Peatland Fires, Haze and Climate Change]()
by admin | Jan 3, 2016 | MYD2015, UNFCCC
Side Event in COP21: Asean collaboration in tackling Peatland Fires, Haze and Climate Change
In this session, Dr. Gary William Theseira, Deputy Undersecretary, Environment Management and Climate Change Division, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Malaysia has shared several key points on how Asean countries come together in combating climate change, peatland fires and haze including:-
At COP21: Asean is not a group to speak at COP but for the past two years. Asean has been working as a group on a joint statement on climate change.
Adaptation strategy by Asean on climate change: Asean Working Group on Climate Change (AWGCC) was formed to find common ground to fight climate change and hence, they agreed to share information of sea level rise, extreme events in detailed levels.
Asean on sharing expertises:
ASEAN Haze Monitoring System (AMHS) developed by Singapore cost $100,000 is expected to make use of land concession maps from each country, hot-spot data and high resolution satellite images to pinpoint companies responsible for burning land illegally.
Asean work closely in conducting researches and a number of joint programs related to forest and natural areas. E.g. Global Environment Centre
Thailand (Thailand Greenhouse Gas Management Organization, TGO) make a good position in Carbon Labelling.
Malaysia share their expertise promoting Green Building Monitoring Tool – monitor the life cycle of architecture / building.
Here are some Q&A on how Asean Countries handle Peatlands and Climate Change:-
Q: Do you have any framework on tackling illegal forest burning and encroachment? As I understand, Asean cannot interfere other Asean countries that causes this problem.
Law and legislation are there but there is lack of implementation/enforcement on peatlands in the region. Currently Asean is coordinating enhance capacity of local government, local sectors, and community to work together. Further works need to be done.
Q. Direct to Dr. Gary: I am struck by your statement that ASEAN countries want to develop without becoming the major emitter. How Asean can contribute in the debate in equity when it comes into the agreement. How Asean can come into play in the negotiation?
Dr. Gary: There is growing role in Renewable Energy. Asean does not have access to traditional Renewable Energy like wind, and solar. We are looking forward to something like biomass and wave energy. This is where technology transfer comes in. This could be the pathway where we can achieve clean energy.
Rehabilitation of peat swamps are achievable in other parts of the world but we need to consider the cultural, and social parts of the world.
With the current technologies – it is evident the cost is very high. For instance, to build a railroad, every one meter you need two concrete slippers. We know the carbon price of steels and concrete slippers. We need to pass via a phase where carbon emissions will be higher. We are trying to incorporate that into agreement. Benefit of that, you can remove x number of cars. Means and numbers are there. We need to come down to speak honestly. We need to come down to the level where we can honestly discuss and work on this together.
Q. I think we are overlooking issue such as peatland subsidence. Peatland oxidize, carbon release to the air and soil is lowered 5 cm per year. In asean region. Bottom of the peats lie below. What would the solution be in addressing such issue?
Peatland subsidence (lowering of the soil): Impact of drainage without fire has been recognized as the main sources of GHG. That has led to adoption of new principles and criteria. Any plantations on peat must do a drainage projection on the next 40 years. If not, it must rehabilitate and use only for wet-production. Only applicable to RSPO for now. This is one of the major challenges in the future.
Q. Long Term Solution for Haze Problem?
Dr. Gary: Long term solution to the haze problem lies in building your capacity of indigenous and local people the dangers of traditional agricultural practices in a changing environment.
Written by: Jolene Journe T.
![Personal Experience in Pre-COP Arrangement]()
by admin | Jan 3, 2016 | Blog, MYD2015, UNFCCC
Grocery store right opposite our apartment
When I was filling in the MYD feedback form, there is a question asking about which part of COP did I think I performed the best. To be honest, I think I perform well (not to say the best) during pre-COP period, where all the necessary preparation and arrangement were needed to be done. I really like what I was doing at that moment because my objective is, to have a proper team, to attend COP21 and learn together. This article will focus on my experience in pre-COP arrangement.
Accommodation
I took the lead in accommodation arrangements. A few type of accommodation search engines were used in order to make the best comparison in terms of prices, amenities and location. To name a few, there are hostelworld, booking.com, hotels.com, agoda and Airbnb. To speed up the shortlist process, I narrowed down the scope of the search. For example, I only search 1 to 2 stars hotel or apartment. Obviously, the price of accommodation from 3 stars and above are expensive and there is no reason for me to do so. We are there for work, not for holiday.
All shortlisted accommodation were compile into a spreadsheet to ease comparison. After much discussion with the team, we decided to choose Mim’s apartment from Airbnb. The apartment is situated at a strategic location. It was located near to Gare Du Nord. Gare Du Nord is like Malaysia KL Sentral (public transport hub) and it has a direct train line to travel to Le Bourget Airport (COP21 venue). There is also a grocery store just in front of it, which is convenient for us because we were planning to cook, in order to save money. Last but not least, the most attractive factor is the price! The host of the apartment, Mim is a nice person and he gave us a good deal. Thus, I highly recommended his apartment to those who wish to travel to Paris in a group of 4 to 6. Trust me, you will be amazed by the interior design and the amenities provided.
The whole process, from the beginning till the day the booking was finally confirmed, took around 2 months! It took longer than I expected, and it was not easy to coordinate among my team members. Insufficient funds also resulted in a delay for the booking. Well, nothing last forever, so goes to the bad days. We managed to get everything sorted out at the end of October and the apartment that we desired was booked.
Budget planning
To date, this is my second time working on budget planning since my university project 3 years ago. To summarise my experience, budget planning is not difficult but it requires constant monitoring. The price of some expenses such as Airfare vary from time to time. Today, the price of the Airfare is RM1800, tomorrow the price might fluctuate to RM2500.00 and, the following day it might fall back to RM1800. In short, my feeling is like riding a roller coaster.
To ease my job, I set up a daily update notification, to check for the airfare for a few chosen airlines. Besides, research done for the food expenses is also time consuming. Thanks to Internet, everything is possible with just a few clicks. The initial food budget per diem is 18 Euro (approx RM85) based on the estimated calculation I obtained from online and recommendations from friends that are currently staying at Paris. The budget per diem increased during mid of November as we have adequate funds and I also wish to have a better team welfare. Moreover, it is also advisable to allocate higher value during budget planning so that there are reserved funds available in case of overrun.
After staying a week in Paris, we as a team felt that the food budget is more than sufficient as some of the days we cook ourselves. As a result, we agreed to change back to the initial budget. Aside from these, different people have different eating lifestyle. For those who wish to have fine dining for every meal, i am sorry to say that 18 Euro is hardly possible even for a single meal. No offense but chinese food in Paris is relatively cheaper and the good thing is there is rices available. #ASIAN
Develop necessary documents
I also have the opportunity to work on producing a MYD2COP21 logistic handbook. In my opinion, a handbook is essential as it is the best way to share all relevant information to the team members. The handbook consists of all the information needed such as accommodation, public transportation know-how, registration for COP21, a list of parallel events and emergency contacts. Albeit COP21 is over, you are most welcome to refer to the handbook for future references. While developing the handbook, it gave me a clearer picture on how each “system” work, especially the public transport system.
Unlike Malaysia, the public transport system in Paris is way more complicated! Please click this link if you do not believe me and be prepare to get your mind go haywire. But again, technology has made our life so much easier now. There are 2 free public transport apps that come in handy when you want to plan your journey in Paris, namely RATP: Subway Paris and Visit Paris by Metro.
Besides, I also created a customised google map that pinpointed most of the location and description of parallel events that happened during COP21. I felt that the map is very useful as everyone can check on all the events in a single map. It’s so convenient! The only thing I regretted about it is, I did not manage to share this map to a wider audience. *what a waste*
Training series
In order to get ready for “war” during COP21, we need to equip ourselves with sufficient knowledge of understanding climate change and UNFCCC. From July until November 2015, a series of training workshops were organised by MYD to enhance youth skills and understanding in climate change & UNFCCC negotiations. The workshops were hosted by various climate experts, government bodies and civil society leaders to share on related topics with the youth delegation as well as the public.
For more information, please click here.
Written by: Thomas Lai
Edited by: Merryn Choong
![Climate Change is NOT only about Environment]()
by admin | Jan 3, 2016 | Blog, MYD2015, UNFCCC
After joining Gan Pei Ling’s training session one month before we departed to Paris, I started to think how should we explain climate change in a wider context to people around us. I like how she broke down climate change into smaller pictures by relating the issues to politics, geography, culture, economy, education etc. This idea further developed when I saw many people with different backgrounds and from different sectors attending the COP21 in Paris.
Photo credit: www.mindmapart.com
Many people around me always think that climate change is global warming and global warming is cutting down trees and the increase of numbers of cars on the streets. Sometimes it might be a bit frustrating to listen to that; it’s like how people is telling you that the fried rice is made of rice only while you know there is some soy sauce, MSG and oil inside of it.
What I am trying to say here is that people tend to focus on the superficial part of the problem and ignore the story behind the picture. So let’s see what are important elements of the climate change that we should also pay attention to:
- Politics – What is UNFCCC? It is a United Nation Conference on climate change which 196 countries will meet up and discuss about the ways and commitments that every nation should contribute to fight against this crisis. “Countries”, “discuss”, “ways and commitments”, these terms portray how politics play the game in climate change, especially in climate policy and climate finance. The efforts of controlling climate change is highly dependent on the political stand of the Parties.
- Social and Culture – Extreme weathers might cause the cultural heritage like monuments to be eroded at a higher rate. Indigenous people will lost their livelihoods and might need to move away from their original habitats. Changes in culture is inevitable for societies to adapt and cope with climate change. For instance, the awareness about climate change has risen over time and large population started to change their lifestyle to a more sustainable one.
- Education – As climate change exacerbate, the climate education become more and more important to build capacity and to increase the unity among the people and the authorities to curb the climate change. Campaigns, talks, videos, articles etc all are considered as climate education. Many people who are staying in the outskirts have relatively low accessibility to the information about climate change which will caused them to be more fragile in front of the alteration in climate.
- Economy – The efforts and the focus of the countries on combating climate change will be a very important pointer of the economy because the development of the green industry and the dirty energy industry will be relying on that. Besides, climate change will be causing extreme weather which affects the crop yield and increases the loss and damage of the citizens. This will further influence the price of food and the economy of the countries which main output are agricultural products.
- Geography – The rising sea level no doubt will be causing a change in the geographical size of the land while the extreme weather will bring about uncommon weather pattern and increase the fertility of the land. The landscape of an area would also be changed by climate change.
- Demography – When the landscape and fertility of the land altered, the people whose livelihood depends on the agricultural activities would have to search for other ways to survive, for example, shifting to the city and work in the factory or moving away from the lowland that has annual flood. This will result in changes of demography in the areas/cities. The climate migration might incur geopolitical problems like overcrowding, food shortage or even civil war.
- Biodiversity – Excessive logging is one of the reasons of climate change. Climate change makes the environment less conducive for certain vulnerable flora and fauna because some species are highly sensitive and is very “picky” about their habitats. Many crop yields decrease because of climate change and this will affect the economy and increase the climate migration.
- Human rights – There are many organizations which focus on gender equality and indigenous people are very concerned on climate change because these groups are usually the front-line victims of the climate issues. For instance, women in the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are faced with difficulties in food production, household water supply and energy supply because of climate change. They are comparatively inaccessible towards technologies, capacity building and financial resources.
- Religion – Many spiritual leaders have already recognized the need to curb climate change, mostly by publishing religious statement on climate change. They urge the Parties and public to acknowledge the need to take good care of the God’s creation and to work towards the same goal of protecting the environment.
In fact, climate change is related to everyone and everything on this planet. We have to collaborate and give our commitments to address our common threat, the climate change, before it is too late.
Written by Elaine
![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
![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.
