Personal development tracking
The event COY 11 Tokyo is being held at National Olympics Memorial Youth Center. Even though the event is taking place in Japan, there is no language barrier between the participants. Most of us understand English and we try to communicate with each other regarding the issue on climate change. I managed to improve on my networking skills. I am grateful to meet like-minded people especially youth from East Asia as there are many common problems we are facing. Here are some of the problems we discussed: haze, poor air quality, sea level rise, ecosystem disruption. I feel that it is very important to not be SHY in front of people. Keep in mind “Be Brave to Speak Out Our Opinions”.
Highlight
One of the highlights of the day is our guest speaker, Mr. Tareshi. He is from Tuvalu and married to a Japanese wife. It is an eye opener to know the presence of Tuvalu country. It is a small country with a population of 11,000. It is located near to the east side of Australia. People living in Tuvalu basically depend on the local resources for living. Each household must own a canoe for fishing. It is heart wrenching to know that the Tuvalu is getting more floods and droughts as the years come by. They were hit by a cyclone last year and it was the second time being affected by a huge wave. Local communities, especially the youth are taking actions to voice up their concern. The Prime Minister of Tuvalu and respective delegations will be attending COP21. The fear for losing livelihood for the future generation has forced local communities to find a new HOME. The speaker highlighted that should you become a leader for the climate movement, please help to protect Tuvalu.
Learnt
- Youth of East Asia Action Agenda (YEAAA): The participants selected five topics that are concerned with the impact of climate change.
- Poverty: A lot of consequences of climate change lead to poverty.
- Haze: East Asia such as Malaysia and China are facing this issue. The consequences of global warming worsen the haze situation.
- Destruction of Ecosystem: Lost of species.
- Rise of Sea Level: Islands are most vulnerable.
- Economy: The countries which suffer from climate change face poverty, lack of food security, etc.
- Guest speaker from Tuvalu : Learnt about how an island such as Tuvalu is struggling for the survival of their people.
- CLIMATE: Make it work!. Watched the documentary flim from a COP simulation in Paris to rethink climate negotiations. Carolin shared her experience on how 200 students in her university mimicking the process of Conference of Parties. The negotiation process is tough at the beginning. It is time consuming, tiring, complicated and tough process. It is a remarkable achievement to finally getting everyone to agree on the text and reaching an agreement.
- All COYs’ Round Table Session – Meeting with COY from Brazil, France, Indonesia and Canada through Google Hangout. It was great to know youth from other parts of country are concern about climate change issue.
- Goal – Yes. I am achieving my first goal to meet East Asia youth who might be the leaders of tomorrow.
