Luana Bosanquet-heays – PSP COP16 Actions Coordinator
Monday 6th December- Day 6 at COP16
Kia Orana from the beautiful, sunny Cancun!
Today was a biggie in terms of spreading our PSP wings as far as possible. It has also been a flurry of excitement as we welcome Nat into the COP centre. Following new accreditation procedures, Pen and Romita spent the day networking at Klimaforum (which by the way is in a jungle!)
I think one of the most rewarding things about being involved in the COP process is sharing the pacific story, seeing people really empathise with our situation and relaying that message back to their communities or onto their key decision makers. I did a presentation today at the Climate Change Youth Forum at the Climate Village (like the Big Day Out but for climate change and for two weeks!) on NGO climate advocacy where I met with an elderly man today at the who had no idea of the spiritual connection people of the Pacific have with their land and once he realized this he was able to draw connections between the Pacific and his home here in Mexico.
Nat had a rad first day hanging with Krish- when we had our debrief she could hardly contain her excitement of her first day of COP. Despite the long hours and seemingly endless workload there is an element of fun we are able to have as youth too! They spent most of the day attending various meetings on 1.5 (an imperative both for PSP and now YOUNGO) which was great as it gave us an incredible policy perspective of how the negotiations are folding out.
They attended a high level stakeholders forum called by the President of Mexico, H.E. Felipe de Jesus Calderon Hinojosa where he announced “ particularly for small island states I’d like to see a 1.5 target”. It’s great after our dance with death last week when we thought 1.5 would be out the equation altogether to see people really backing the issue.
Pen and Romita hit up klimaforum with some of the AYD crew, a great space for creativity (and work) offered as an alternative to the strict guidelines of the formal negotiating space. They networked with other youth who had only been accredited for the first week also and sussed out some great blogging and media opportunities for PSP to be involved in.
There’s a real sense of solidarity here amongst youth from all over the world for the Pacific, and I think this was perhaps demonstrated best when the YOUNGO strategy team agreed to use 1.5 as the main message this year during COP.
In addition to this I met with the New Zealand Youth Delegation (NZYD) to discuss collaborations and they have agreed to push questions to their Government and negotiators about New Zealand’s responsibility to the Pacific.
Well that’s about all for today, I’m off to meet with the NZYD to discuss lobbying the NZ government- woohoo!
Kia Manuia
