COP 16 President Patricia Espinosa

Today was the second day of the conference.  Transport to Cancunmesse was a lot smoother; the stop-and-go traffic we experienced on Day 1 was gone. All of the buzz surrounding the first day of the conference seems to have quieted down a bit.  Now that we have a feel for the conference, we can begin to branch out and absorb more content.

As a group, we decided to first attend an event at the Moon Palace. Ms. Patricia Espinosa, Secretary of Foreign Affairs for Mexico and the president of COP16, lead a discussion with youth at the conference, answering questions about Mexico’s policies towards climate change.  Mexico recognizes the importance of the issue, and also the importance of the need for predictable funding to combat climate change. She stated that she was “cautiously optimistic” about a decision being reached by the end of the conference to establish a fund to help Mexico along its path of mitigation. The session ended with Mexican Congressman Moreno  encouraging us to “not respect all of the laws”  (push the status quo) and to “be a little crazy” (tap into the passion of the youth movement) in our actions to combat climate change, because ultimately, the fate of the global environment rests in the hands of today’s youth.

After the session at Moon Palace, we ate lunch at the newly discovered restaurant paradise, and then we split up into small groups and attended sessions that were more specifically linked in some way to our designated topics. Now that we have had the chance to scope out the conference and dip our toes into the water, we can begin to focus more on our individual obligations of information transfer back to SES and the community. Each of us have our own specific pieces of the puzzle that we need to learn more about and we will share information about these pieces with you over the coming days.

We ended the day by once again meeting with YOUNGO (constituency of youth related NGOs). The meeting was primarily for planning, specifically for the event on December 2^nd. Through creative advertising, YOUNGO hopes to get the point across to negotiators at the conference that ultimately, the issue primarily concerns future generations. The ideas promoted at the meeting seemed like wonderful, creative ways to spread the message effectively and memorably. Hopefully, when the events come to play, YOUNGO will be successful in its efforts.  

We’re continuing to adapt more and more to the environment of the conference. We’re looking forward to tomorrow, and a healthy and efficient next week-and-a-half.