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Greetings from Copenhagen!
Goddag! ( = Danish for "Good Day!")
I am sooooo excited and humbled to be writing from Copenhagen, Denmark, where I have the honor of serving as a Youth Delegate from Atlanta, Georgia at the United Nations Climate Change Conference!
Over the course of the next 10 days, I will be posting updates from the conference and sharing my experiences as a "green" (this is my first time participating in a U.N. conference) delegate. This first post is brief, as I have only arrived in Copenhagen today to settle in to my temporary home with our wonderful host Jakob and should probably be sleeping. While it's only 8:00pm in Atlanta, it is 2:00am here in Denmark and I have my first meeting of Youth NGO representatives at 8:00am tomorrow morning, which is 2:00am in Atlanta. Yikes!
I spent a fair portion of today reading the most recent version of the International Climate Treaty that representatives from all over the world have come together to negotiate in an attempt to reach an agreement. Let me warn you that it can be fairly repetitive due to numerous instances of alternative options for wording, content and structure of the document. However, I highly encourage those of you who are interested to at least take a look to see first-hand what the international debate is about. You can download a PDF of the treaty here: http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/awglca7/eng/inf02.pdf
To give you a glimpse of what to expect from my blogging adventure, here are a few of the events that I plan to attend outside of official meetings this week (although most of them are affiliated with the conference in some way):
- Boat Tour to Middelgrunden Offshore Wind Farm
- “From Globalization to Localization of Life and Economy” featuring Dr. Vandana Shiva at the Kilmaforum 09
- “The Role of Education in Relation to the Climate Crisis”
- “Livelihoods, Forests and Climate" featuring Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai (learn how you can host a screening of “Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai” on your campus for FREE!)
Plus, this weekend I’m going to have some fun:
- Visiting the polar bears at the Aalborg Zoo
- Seeing the Bright Green Exhibition
- Ice Skating in a local park that uses NO water or energy to make their “ice”
- Dancing to the beats of Ojos de Brujo in concert
- Attending the New Life Copenhagen festival
- Viewing the Ghost Forest exhibit at the Thorvaldsen Museum
- Enjoying a nice, QUIET afternoon at the International Eco Enduro electric motorcycle race
So stay tuned! And for those of you who are really looking forward to following my activities, I will also be blogging at www.forestjustice.org and tweeting under our YouthForClimate account. Godnat!