A Final COP 16 Reflection

At 2:30 pm, December 13^th, 2010, I watched from my plane window as Cancun disappeared from view beneath layers of clouds. The buildings diminished in size as the plane ascended, getting smaller and smaller, until eventually they blended in with the dark green and shining blue of Mexico’s coast. COP16 was officially over.

Now, we’re all settling back into our daily routines. The hustle and bustle of the conference is over, replaced with the familiar routine of school. It was difficult for some of us to adjust. My mind is still fresh with faces, sights, information, and experience – all of the things we learned, people we met and places we’ve been to. I can’t help but wonder – will any of us see any of it again?

We each took different things away from the conference, but we all left with a greater sense of awareness. The world was larger and more vast than any of us had imagined, and thrust into our faces, it became more real. We weren’t reading text from an environmental magazine. We weren’t watching the President on a television screen giving a speech about emissions 2,000 miles away. We were there, in the heat of it all, soaking up as much of it as we could. Each and every day was exhausting, but fulfilling.

The key to saving this planet is information. With information, there comes understanding, empathy, and the drive to right universal wrongs. Our team of 14 has been informed. We know the problem, and we’ve heard the many voices of the world say their part. We have the facts and the figures, the methods, and the opinions. Now, it is up to us to use this information to change the world. As today’s youth, the fate of our future lies in our hands. Now is the time to empathize; now is the time to right a universal wrong. COP16 has changed all of us. We can use the change within us to change our world.