Poznań: The Maturing of the Youth Contingent

Kyle Gracey wrote the following essay from the 14th Conference of Parties (COP 14) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Poznań, Poland.

"Any REDD mechanism must be first and foremost a mechanism for forest protection and climate stabilization, not a mechanism by which Annex-I countries avoid domestic mitigation actions."

"Political Leaders - Stop Clowning Around!"

What to make of these two seemingly disparate statements? Answer: they are both the voice of the international youth delegation, an increasingly vocal, organized, and perhaps bureaucratized presence at the ongoing United Nations climate change negotiations.

From minor participation in the early years of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), youth have expanded into a sizable and multifaceted actor within the negotiations. But they have struggled to define their place and optimal role in the international community's efforts against climate change.

Through the mid-to-late 1990s and early 2000s, young people, mainly college students and early professionals, attended the yearly meetings of the UNFCCC's Conference of Parties as a lobbying body - one distinct from the young employees of the traditional civil society organizations often found at U.N. negotiations.

The early youth delegations were typically small in size and limited in number, and they often operated independently or even unaware of similar delegations from other nations. They comprised mainly delegates from wealthier, Western nations.

With each passing year, however, youth participation and organization around the negotiations grew. Youth increasingly organized their participation as unified delegations rather than individual attendees - either by forming loosely associated country delegations, or by creating nonprofits or other legal entities that were organized around attending the negotiations but continued to exist between meetings.

Today, though still less diverse than the global population of youth they aim to represent, international youth delegates make up more than 500 of the estimated 10,000 negotiation attendees, and they boast representation from more than 50 nations.

As youth delegations have grown in their size and planning efforts, they have gained notoriety for large, visual activism. They played (melted) ice hockey in swimming pools in Montreal, greeted country delegates in Nairobi with their mouths taped shut to protest the lack of youth on government delegations, and gave swimming lessons and climate emergency kits (malaria pills, relocation coupons, water purification tablets, etc.) in Bali. The second quotation above, the title of a protest march of circus clowns down the streets of Poznań, Poland , shows that youth have been no less willing this year to use demonstration and activism as lobbying tools.

The first quotation, taken from a youth statement in the UNFCCC's Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice, shows that youth have also pursued an increasingly complex policy research, writing, and lobbying effort to influence some of the more detailed policy statements under debate. Some youth delegations focus almost exclusively on policy, typically writing and reading in the otherwise empty convention halls far longer into the night than anyone else.

In addition to making several policy statements during the negotiations and engaging country delegations on contentious policy details, youth have this year even begun producing their own daily policy briefing of their analysis of the day's negotiations.

The growth in youth's efforts has not been painless. Some delegations, and the coordinating efforts across delegations, struggle with whether to prioritize activism or policy, with the end result often being that youth decide individually what they care most about pursuing. This can result in novel activities but insufficient support to test their effectiveness.

The growth of the international youth delegation has also led to efforts to develop overarching governance structures to manage and coordinate the actions of the many delegations. Structural efforts in Poznań included not only typical working groups like policy and communications/media, but also the consideration of an internal Secretariat to manage youth delegations throughout the year. 

Will youth adopt a UN-like bureaucratic structure? Will this enable more unified messaging and sustained efforts between negotiations? Or will too much structure dampen the creative actions that youth have become known for? Will a greater focus on policy earn their positions more legitimacy with governments, or will it rob them of time to focus on powerful direct actions?

As youth consider their growing role in the climate change negotiations, these questions weigh heavily on many a young delegate's mind. Given their likely continued role in the talks, these decisions will shape youth's impacts for many negotiations to come.

Kyle Gracey is the Chair for SustainUS - The U.S. Youth Network for Sustainable Development and a graduate student at the University of Chicago.