Bali COP13 Youth Delegate Thomas from Middlesbrough, UK

Hi I’m Thomas from the UK I am 16 years old and live in a town called Middlesbrough. I am very much looking forward to my trip to Bali, taking in the culture but also to challenge decision makers so that young people have a voice in climate change and the decisions made during the UN Climate Conference. I am really looking forward to sharing my ideas with children and young people from other countries and to see what they have to say on climate change. It will be really exciting to meet officials from different countries and see how they plan to include children’s voices. You can all see my journey from this blog that I will write whilst away and I hope to up date it when I can but my time in Bali is very full with events from the UNFCCC!

December 4th, 2007
After arriving in Bali on the Tuesday night we set straight away to getting to our rooms to sleep and to finding out what was coming the following day. Tuesday awoke with a realisation of just how hot I was going to be for the rest of our stay here in Bali. We Lucy and I set to breakfast to meet Baltz the team leader of the group and Hope and Hazel the young member from the Philippines. Eni and her chaperone Vera who had travelled in from Indonesia were all in the reception ready to travel down to Nusa Dua in Bali where the conference centre is to get our I D cards for our stay here, these would allow us to travel anywhere inside the conference hall.

December 5th, 2007
The Wednesday was mainly an Introduction to meet the NGOs and the delegates from the countries around the world. As well to be informed of where all the side events were taking place. After taking in all the information possible and the realisation of where I was Lucy and me headed back to the hotel to wind down.

December 6th, 2007
Thursday came around and the group met the last delegate of our team from Sweden, which were Hanna and her chaperone Sara who was a teacher at her local school. We all set off for the Grand Hyatt in a local taxi. We were heading there because we were officially meeting staff from the Institute of Development Studies who are partners in the project; they were our influence to get us lobbying the decision makers here in Bali. From there we got to find out how the other 4 young people including myself won a place to come to the UN Climate Conference.

We attended a side event to see how many countries were affected by climate change and what was happening to adapt to the many problems that face the world, I found this interesting as it made me see the true affects it has on the less developed countries of this world. We then went to another side event at 8 o clock that was for young people and what they were doing in this world to influence adults on how they make their decisions. A group that I warmed to was called the Solar generation that did many things like stopping coal factories from exporting by shutting down a plant for 7 hours. We then headed back to the hotel to prepare for the following day.

December 7th, 2007
After been interviewed yesterday for the national paper of Bali the Jakarta news, the group had successfully achieved making the front page. We worked hard in the morning to create some questions that we could ask the delegates of other countries so that we could get a wide spread opinions what adults are doing in their home countries to include the voice of young people. Our first delegate from UNICF we questioned told us her thoughts of the conference and if young peoples views were important, but I found that she didn’t have a lot to say considering she was from a children’s organisation. We carried on from there with the interviews and as the day draw to a close we as members of the conference were invited to the presidents party to eat and drink and to celebrate. This rounded off the day in style and I was just happy to be a part of a good thing.

Overall so far I have realised that the actions that are carried out from people in the Developed countries have a negative affect on the less developed countries and there for it hit me to push for young people to influence theh decision makers.