Dispatch from Bali: Joining Leaders of the Global Youth Climate Movement

Cross-posted from It’s Getting Hot in Here – dispatches from the Youth Climate Movement

We are forging our future here in Bali. I think it’s incredible to meet so many youth from around the world are here in Bali. Leaders of the youth climate movement from Canada, Australia, US, UK, India, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, Germany, Holland, and Japan are here and calling on world leaders for a strong commitment to action.

On Saturday, we kicked off our international youth coalition in Bali in preparation for the conference. To step up our impact on the negotiations, we organized ourselves into four working groups: Communications & messaging, Creative action & outreach, Policy, and International youth network. The four groups are now meeting daily to coordinate their own projects during the conference.

I joined the creative actions group because I want to demonstrate to the world that youth care about our future, and to ramp up our message to media and government delegates. On Sunday, the creative actions group piled into in the nearby SustainUS hotel suite to plan our actions for the first week. Over 20 of us from Canada, America, Denmark, Indonesia, India, and Japan brainstormed creative ways to communicate to media and governments the severity of climate change and the importance for a bold commitment to action from world leaders. We agreed to hold daily actions in the afternoons and, when appropriate, smaller action in the morning.

It is energizing and challenging to work together. The youth coalition is a microcosm of the UN negotiation process, where to be effective we need to put aside our differences and find our unifying voice; and a message that respects our diversity and communicates our common goals. Operating by consensus, it’s important to get input from everyone. This is challenging, because the US, Canadian, and Indonesian youth tended to be more vocal, and at times we had to stop and check in with others, especially the Indonesian representatives.

I think there’s something critical separating the international youth coalition from the broader UNFCCC process – US youth want action now and want to engage with the world. We are advancing a shared commitment to a Bali breakthrough on climate.