COP15: Day 2

Today was another exciting day at COP15! Our orientation yesterday helped us feel more confident in the COP15 environment today despite the size of the building, number of people, and frequency of flashing cameras.

Sarah represented WAGGGS in the spokes-council meeting this morning. In other sessions, members of our delegation spoke with nonprofit organizations about women, gender issues, and reproductive rights. Our delegation attended working group meetings, interviewed people with flip cams, asked questions at various sessions, and shook hands with many new people from around the world.

The WAGGGS delegation held a side event that was very successful! We wrote “1 voice” on our foreheads to represent the one, unified voice of girls and young women. We did the human knot, a millionaire quiz, and shared information about our key messages and the climate change badge.

This evening, Sarah and Maria attended a session by the US delegation. They had the opportunity to talk about Girl Scouting with Lisa Jackson who is the Administrator of the EPA in the US after the meeting. Earlier in the day, I listened to Jackson speak as a panelist in a session entitled, “The Contribution of Biofuels to Climate Change Mitigation in Brazil.” Jackson supports Girl Scouts, and we are excited for our meeting with her tomorrow afternoon. Jackson is well-known for declaring, yesterday, that carbon dioxide and five other green house gases threaten public health. Women’s bodies are more vulnerable to health concerns pertaining to climate change, so now we need to push for the US to sign a real deal to take responsibility for climate change.

Our email inboxes are flooding with messages from youth working groups and US youth working groups at COP15. We are looking forward to getting more involved with the US youth working group, continuing to spread WAGGGS key messages, and planning our own action.

Yours Truly in Guiding and Scouting,

Emily