I was very honored when the International Youth Delegation asked me to present the Youth Statement on Energy before the entire UN and offical delegates this past Wednesday. After three days sitting around a laptop in a cafe near the WSSD conference center with 5 to 15 young people who are incredibly passionate and knowledge but from very divergent backgrounds, we we able to draft a text that was visionary and got straight to the point that all the countries have failed the youth!

Jan Pronk, the same man that chaired the Kyoto negotiations, facilitated the Energy planary. His style was like that of Phil Donahue. He ran around the floor fielding tough questions to get the real story from all of us on the floor. In addition to the youth representation, there was business, labor, women, indigenous peoples, etc.. representing all of the major groups. But Youth dominated the conversation proving that while we are young, we do know what we are talking about! After every comment I made, the strong youth presence in the audience cheered loudly, no one could ignore us!

Trying to be as professional and informed as possible, we focused the state on three points in the "plan of action" that has yet to be adopted. First, we demanded that they governments define clean energy as: wind, solar, wave and tidal, small hydro... youth would not put up with coal being defined as a form of clean energy. Second, we did not want the US delegation to once again undermine international efforts to put Kyoto in force. We made it very clear that the "plan of action" must keep Kyoto in. Finally, we called for the immediate phase-out of dirty energy subsidies and 20% of that money be funneled into a fund for clean renewable energy technology transfere for developing Nations.

Now that our opportunities to speak before the UN are over, the Greenpeace youth delegation, is moving on to Plan B and watching the official US delegation and reporting back to the rest of the world what mischeif they are up to!

August 29, 2002

I feel as though we have been living in the depths of a cloudy bureaucracy ever since my flight landed on the 23rd. The first United Nations event I have participated in, WSSD has shown only small sparkles of sustainable development. The disorganization illustrated in the uncertainties of NGO access was insulting; the narrow representation within the youth caucus is disheartening; and the ability of those with powerful political influence to talk for a quarter of an hour without answering one yes-or-no-question sets me beyond frustration. How did we get here? With amounts of money I cannot begin to comprehend backing selfish, globally degrading agendas that are hidden in a complex web of policy and subsidies, How will we ever achieve ecological stability?

As youth, we can take action at international conferences to pressure delegates, while also gaining knowledge to take home. We can embrace the tangible examples of activism and empowerment. Here are some of the small actions we have taken during our first week in Johannesburg.

The fun started Yesterday. We joined ASEED Japan in a morning demonstration outside the entrance to the main complex of Sandton with signs and singing. As the regulations against demonstrations within the Sandton have greatly limited our options, we have utilized the handy dandy t-shirt as our next tactic. We invoke attention, photographs, and dialogue with slogans such as "Corporate polluters are eating my brain!" and " The Toxic Texan" on a shirt with a picture of President Bush. We also advertise "clean energy now" along with "KYOTO" which five of us spelled out in the front row of an energy meeting with NGO's and members of the US delegation.

After countless meetings to organize statements from the youth caucus, our very own Kristen Casper represented the youth at the multi-stakeholder dialogue for energy. Her statements were the only ones that had the crowd in the plenary session hooping and clapping. She was brilliant and brought a sense of vitality to our delegation.

That vitality certainly influenced my involvement in the Greenpeace Action that took place this morning. Four of us from the youth delegation joined Greenpeace activists at the Dow Chemical Plant about twenty minutes outside of Johannesburg. This was my first action with Greenpeace, and it was the most well organized action of which I have ever been a part. As soon as we pulled up to the gates of the plant at ten this morning and began unfolding the banner, media came running towards us. As we blocked the gates, the idle trucks provided platforms for photographers, and Greenpeace reps discussed the matter calmly with security and reporters.

Directly after the action we were on our way to the press conference with our Congressional leaders. All of us said a bit at the press conference, but Nadia gave the outstanding speech. Kids Against Pollution (also from the US) surprised us all with a song, and left a few of us with water in our eyes.

Afterwards, we had yet more discussion with congressmen and a brainstorming session among ourselves. We will wake up tomorrow to attend the unveiling of a mural that incorporated some of 2 million petitions (all calling for clean renewable energy) into the artwork.

Creativity is in the air, and any you have to offer would be greatly appreciated. Also, let us know what you are curious about … there is so much to tell.

Peace.
~ tricia

August 29, 2002

Who would have thought that Greenpeace and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development would make a joint statement to call for concrete action and leadership from national governments (especially the US) to address climate change and to put into force the Kyoto Protocol? Well, maybe I.

Believe it or not, it happened last night! The two groups sat down in front a packed auditorium (with audience and press overflowing into the outside lobby of the IUCN building) and delivered the truly historic statement. To me, last night was extremely inspiring to my personal passion: making a business case to corporations that becoming sustainable in their business practices today will not only make them socially and environmentally responsible, it will help these first-movers become more competitive.

I have always held the belief that business and environmentalists need not be antagonistic. Joburg has really reaffirmed my beliefs.

On Tuesday, August 27, 2002, I attended a Dialogue Event sponsored by the Young Managers’ Team of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development as a representative of the Greenpeace Youth Delegation, along with Andrea Avolio (also from the Greenpeace Youth Delegation). Even before Andrea and I arrived in Johannesburg, we held a conference call to prepare for this event to make sure that something concrete came out of this event. We didn’t want it to be just another forum for businesses to talk the walk, but not really walk the walk. But as this week has shown me, businesses have begun walking the walk; it’s the US government that has failed to show the leadership in our efforts to achieve a sustainable future.

Let me tell you a little bit more about the Dialogue Event. The Young Managers’ Team is consisted of young managers from about thirty member companies of the WBCSD, assembled (as far as I can tell) for the purpose of this Summit. The idea of the dialogue event was to create a forum for these young professionals to interface with the youth from various NGOs and government delegations. After an initial introductory presentation, the group of about 60 participants broke out into four discussion groups: Sustainable Development in the Context of Globalization; Corporate Social Responsibility; Corporate Accountability; and Capacity Building.

I arrived in my discussion group on Globalization to find an extremely diverse set of young managers, students, and young representatives of various NGOs. The moderator, a young manager from Interface, Inc., asked each of us to introduce ourselves and to include how each of us came to become interested in the issue of sustainable development. People’s responses were quite interesting in that most people attributed their passion to either the influence of family members or that of media.

For some, the inextricable link between humans and our environment was demonstrated when a young ant was accidentally crushed or when images of the Ethiopian famine appeared on the television set. For me, the TV image of the ozone hole more than a decade ago first demonstrated to me the incredible power of humankind to change the environment. This power was first manifested to me by ozone depletion, and today I strongly believe that anthropogenic climate change is the greatest threat facing our civilization, disproportionately affecting those that have had the least hand in creating the problem in the first place.

After the introductions, the discussion group launched into an envisioning session in which we put forth what we would like to see by 2012, Joburg plus ten. The discussions were very fruitful and could have continued for hours had we had more time. I then had the pleasure of bringing our discussions back to the full group as one of the panelists. I shared with the entire audience our visions of full corporate social and environmental accountability and responsibility; proportionate and meaningful representation and participation by groups currently marginalized at the negotiating table such as youth and indigenous peoples; and governmental and intergovernmental leadership to achieve sustainable living.

Representatives from the other discussion groups also summarized the discussions from their respective groups. If my discussion group was indicative of the others, I must say that these dialogues were extremely inspiring and encouraging, especially to myself, who believes in the potential of the business sector to be the catalyst for positive change.

After the presentations of the discussion summaries, the other two panelists Bjorn Stigson, president of WBCSD, and Miguel, the director of corporate strategy of IUCN, the World Conservation Union also spoke of the important role of youth in business in innovating the business sector for companies to be responsible stewards of the earth. Youth in the audience and on the panel then challenged Bjorn and Miguel to make a commitment to support forums of this sort in order to continue the beneficial dialogue between young professionals that will become the future business leaders and youth within the NGO sector. Personally, this was a tremendous breakthrough. Bjorn and Miguel were also very encouraging of my mission to create change within the business sector through my job as a business analyst at a major consulting company.

And then Bjorn mentioned that Greenpeace and the WBCSD were going to hold a joint press conference. Not having heard any news of such an event, my first instinct was that such joint action between these two “archrivals” was unlikely.

I guess I should not have been that surprised. If Greenpeace was going to include a consultant on its youth delegation, it certainly should not be beyond the realm of possibility that GP would join forces with the WBCSD to show their frustration about the lack of leadership shown in addressing climate change. Afterall, all things are possible. And I’m hopeful that concrete and binding frameworks for achieving sustainability will come out of Joburg. If you think I’m just a young idealist, so be it because even Jan Pronk admitted to having a bit of idealism left in him in the energy plenary session. And I certainly don’t mind being likened to Mr. Pronk.

The Greenpeace Youth Delegation hit the streets running today, ready to promote renewable energy as a solution for poverty and global warming. We arrived at 8:30am this morning for the summit’s official opening only to find that delegates from NGOs and other major groups would not be allowed into the Sandton Convention Center without a “secondary pass,” which none of the GP youth had. Supposedly, the convention center can only hold up to 6,000 individuals total, because of fire safety regulations. As a result, the UN limited access to only 1,500 of the estimated 15,000 NGO delegates. Although the policy was apparently announced yesterday, it took many groups by surprise. The restrictions on access severely disrupted several events that had planned to take place in the convention center and were responsible for a great deal of anger and confusion as civil society groups struggled to reschedule their events and develop new strategies to adjust to the changes. Early on in the day, the UN announced that each day at 1pm, it would give away 1,500 secondary passes on a first come first served basis. The passes would then be accepted for admission to the convention center on the next day. By 11am, at least 50 people had already formed a line and the line quickly grew from there. After waiting in line for 2 hours just to be able to participate, tensions flared over line jumping and place holding. It is not clear whether it was the UN’s intent, but the obvious effect of the access restrictions has been to incite competition between NGOs for access and to force NGOs to waste 2 hours of potential lobbying work just waiting in line everyday. Later in the day, it was announced that, rather than making everyone wait in line for hours every day, starting tomorrow (Tues the 27th), the UN would just allow in as many NGO delegates as possible in the morning and would then close off further access. Predictably, this caused some resentment on the part of the NGOs that had spent hours queuing to obtain now worthless secondary passes. In response to the obvious lack of organization (or, as some suggested, the deliberate exclusion of civil society) by the UN, NGOs held a meeting in the evening to coordinate a response. The meeting gave many a chance to vent about spending valuable time and resources to come to the summit only to find that they had been closed out of the process.

In spite of the new regulations, the GP youth team stayed active. The youth team participated in general Youth Caucus meetings as well as youth working groups on Energy and Multi-Sectoral issues. Other team members worked in Ubuntu Village to educate the public about the potential of solar energy to lift people out of poverty, while still others questioned the US delegation’s opposition to targets for renewable energy production at a briefing for US NGOs.

Greenpeace is hosting ten young activist college students to attend the 2002 Earth Summit. These students have been drafted from a wide pool of talented and visionary youth. They are each studying ways to save the planet and its people from various disciplines.

At the 2002 Earth Summit, the Greenpeace youth delegation will help deliver the Choose Positive Energy petition and meet with US government leaders. They will present their visions of the future and those of fellow youth around the world to government leaders.

Throughout the Earth Summit, they will let you know what is happening in Johannesburg from their own perspective and what leaders are doing to save our planet and our future.

Stay tuned…