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Poznan, Poland
For up-to-date information on the current UNFCCC, visit www.ItsGettingHotInHere.org
To follow COA alumnus John Deans visit http://www.timesrecord.com/website/main.nsf/news.nsf/0/A9BFF55B05EFDADE85257512006A9ABB?Opendocument
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Matthew Maiorana, Casie Reed, Lauren Nutter and Juan
Soriano take a moment's rest before heading out to Poland.
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Six students from College of the Atlantic are among the youth attend- ing the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Poznan, Poland. Three of the students, Matthew Maiorana, Lauren Nutter and Casie Reed, are nationally elected officers of the environmental youth organization, SustainUS. They will be official youth delegates.
To help organize environmental youth organizations in Latin America, a fourth student, Juan C. Soriano of Lima, Peru will report on the meetings in Spanish for www.350.org/es. Additionally, Matthew McInnis of Portland, ME and Michael Kersula of Bellows Falls, VT will attend the meetings as part of a photographic and ethnographic investigation into the relationship between Polish religious beliefs and ecological values.
The students believe that their voice is essential to these meetings, as their generation will be living with the consequences of decisions made now. "We bring humanity to the meetings," says Reed, of Portland, ME. "We remind people that their decisions have an impact-everywhere." Having spent hours looking into the policies that will be debated in Poland, COA students feel ready to have an impact.
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Casie Reed, faculty member Doreen Stabinsky, Juan Soriano
and Lauren Nutter pose beneath the origami hung lights of one of the meeting rooms in Poznan.
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Since 1992, when the first climate change accords were created, UN delegates have been meeting yearly to move member nations to limit emissions. These accords, known as the Kyoto protocol, expire in 2012. Because the protocol takes time to implement and ratify, the next set of long-term agreements will be established in 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The 2008 meetings will set the stage for these agreements.
"The negotiations in Copenhagen are incredibly important to the future of humanity and to global action on climate change," says Nutter, of Uxbridge, MA. "As youth, we feel there needs to be a strong binding agreement that will ensure the well being of future generations."
The students will meet with as many as 500 youth from more than 50 countries beginning Friday, Nov. 28. Nutter, who attended last year's negotiations in Bali, is charged with organizing and preparing the 18 delegates chosen by SustainUs. These delegates, all under 26 years old, come from colleges and organizations across the nation. "Our generation must be given a voice, because the decisions we make today will shape tomorrow's world," says Nutter.
Student concern has led to some serious work. Maiorana, of Detroit, MI and Reed have spent the last few months reading hundreds of pages of policy documents. The two serve as Policy Co-Coordinators for SustainUs. It is their job-in consultation with others-to decide which of the issues the youth voice will have the most impact on, and then what the youth position will be. They've spent the last six months writing up briefings and developing lobbying strategies. A class in global environmental politics with COA faculty member Doreen Stabinsky has helped solidify their understanding of the issues.
For Maiorana, this is an intensification of his work-he too attended last year's meetings in Bali. But it is Reed's first convention. Having studied conservation biology, and worked doing scientific research locally, Reed feels the need to understand how policy is established on an international level.
The issues they've chosen will be to find ways to encourage emissions reductions from deforestation in developing countries and also enhance "clean development" in developing nations, hoping to focus on energy issues that can be considered "no-loss," in which emissions reductions will also be economical for the developing nations. A further focus will be on the United States itself, and staying connected to the many delegates who are career diplomats and so likely to stay on through the next administration.
Additionally, the students will be continuing to strengthen the global youth movement. Recalling Bali, Maiorana says, "It is really, really powerful when youth work together better than governments do.
Students will be recording their responses to the meetings on www.ItsGettingHotInHere.org.
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