Before I begin, I’d like to say:

ARE YOU HAPPY??? I’M BLOGGING!!!

(If you are ever involved with CSD, you will find that the only thing scarier than presenting a statement to the chair is facing Cat, Erin, Chloe, or Yochi when you haven’t written a blog yet.)

All right. Let’s get started.

It’s very, very early Wednesday morning, but I’m just getting around to really digesting what happened yesterday, Tuesday, the second day of the 15th Commission on Sustainable Development here at the United Nations in New York City. I’m writing about the second day because, even looking back, the first day was far too confusing to make sense of in my mind, let alone written out for others to see. Using Monday as the oh-my-goodness-what-the-heck-am-I-doing day, however, allowed me to open up Tuesday as being the let’s-try-to-be-productive day. And I definitely think today was productive.

The four major issues that the UN is presently looking at are Energy, Climate Change, Industrial Development, and Air Pollution/Atmosphere. This is also how a lot of discussions for today were organized: parallel sessions on Energy and Air Pollution/Atmosphere in the morning, followed by parallel discussions on Climate Change and Industrial Development. Because I really get into industrial development (I’m not obsessed, but saying I was wouldn’t be entirely inaccurate…), I worked with Caitlin, Bob, Ruthie, and many other members of the youth caucus to frame a statement to read at the afternoon discussion on the topic

With some nudging by Caitlin, I wound up sitting in the big blue leather chair behind the “Youth and Children” sign, set to read our statement. It’s such an official feeling, sitting there on behalf of so many people, citizens of this world. It’s really quite humbling, because you’re representing so very many that truly need a voice. I was about to use mine to explain to the chair the youth’s input on the issue of sustainable industrial development.

I had been making some small talk with the gentleman sitting next to me, who represents indigenous peoples. I suddenly turned to him in a panic, exclaiming, “Can you help me? I don’t know how to turn the microphone on.” He gave me the most wonderfully awkward look before explaining how to push the button, and wait for the light around the microphone to light up. That man, (whose name I have a hard time pronouncing, let alone typing), is now my personal hero, complete with cape and sidekick if he so chooses.

After having a nice freak-out session in my head while the chair called on other major groups to speak their piece, the youth and children group was called. I pushed the button, (being confident now that I knew how the silly thing worked), and began to speak. Slowly, clearly, only messing up once (sort of), and ending with the point that the time had passed for saying that “youth in the future will wonder why no one did anything while they could,” because the youth of today were already asking that now.

The chair thanked me, and my hero-friend of the indigenous peoples patted my arm and said I had done a good job. I’ll take that! It was really the icing on the cake when, after all the statements had been made, the chair went through some of the key points of the overall session, and specifically noted the youth’s stance on making education a key issue in the transition to a sustainable lifestyle. Yay!!

Tomorrow (today, really) is looking just as, if not more promising than yesterday, Between meetings with the youth caucus and the NGO groups, presenting statements and doing some major networking, I think this delegation will really be able to get the youth voice out there, not only into the heads of the delegates, but also in the words of the policies.

J

Lindsay Baker