Paris. A trip which many are looking forward to. To travel, to explore and… to fall in love. Fall in love with the city, people, culture, fashion, food… and? Well, I am looking forward to the upcoming COP21 at Paris that is to be held on 30th November 2015.
Before every COP, an annual youth conference will be held annually. This culture has been going on since 2009 where young attendees of the world get the opportunity to gather, to share, explore, experience and grow together towards a global smart climate community.
This year, the 11th Conference of Youth (COY11) is one of the largest ever held where the event was graced by 5000 other young attendees around the globe at Parc des Expositions de Villepinte. There are many workshops, conferences, debates, and forum occurred concurrently throughout the 3 days from 26th November 2015 to 28th November 2015. The message of the COY 11 is to show that young people are able to mobilize. They are important actors of change and leaders of tomorrow where, they are able to convey concrete solutions to combat climate change together. Majority of the people come with this objective in mind, “to imagine and create the society of tomorrow”.
One of the highlights in COY is their “Make It Real” program as it is an open innovation track where young people get the opportunity to explore, to convey their dreams and visions into practical solutions to make a better society. For me, words such as creativity, visions and dreams are keys to bring humanity one step forward. If you ask me, to be better or worse? I do not know. Perhaps, James Diamond study on “How Societies Collapse” has the answer for this.
Nonetheless, this year is also the first experience for Malaysian Youth Delegation (MYD) team to explore COY11. In my opinion, the experience is enriching especially having one of our team member “Amalen” to co-organized a brief Asian meetup session with at least 30 enthusiastic Asian Youth at COY! These energetic young Asian leaders are here – to share and engage with one another, to express their environmental initiatives they have back home. For instance, we have Kai from China, who does global research on bees; Mia from Indonesia – who focuses on youth climate action at COP and Bhaskar Padigala from India, whom had done an amazing work on researching available renewable energy technologies that are applicable to his home country.
Although it is only a day at COY11, it is still an enriching global experience for me. Hopefully, if I am fortunate enough, to explore the next COY in full.
Written by: Jolene Journe T.
Edited by: Merryn C.
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