Friday 25 September 2009

Hello from the Copenhagen 4's Cressie

Cressie, 15, from near Gloucester, is one of the four winners of UNICEF's Big Climate Callout competition, selected to represent the UK at the Copenhagen Children's Climate Forum in December.

The first prep meeting we had in August was a great success. During the weekend we drew up targets and action points as well as assigning areas of responsibility. Since then I have been busy organising presentations in local primary and secondary schools, explaining how climate change is a children’s rights issue and why UNICEF is so involved.

Hopefully I will run a ‘green day’ at my school, where we will dress up in green to help raise awareness of Copenhagen and being environmentally friendly in general.

As I am passionate about trying to give being ‘green’ a modern, chic appeal, so as to get more people involved and engaged, I have been busy designing a t-shirt with some friends. At the moment I am spending lots of time working on my portfolio and doing comparative research for the t- shirt - but hopefully a prototype will be made soon!

As usual I am looking for articles and reading about climate change in the press to ensure I am up to speed with all that is going on in the run up to Copenhagen. As the Children’s Climate Forum looms ever closer, I continue to become more excited and equally determined to make it worthwhile, helping raise awareness in both my local area and nationally.

Hello from the Copenhagen 4's Luke

Luke, 17, from Newcastle, is one of the four winners of UNICEF's Big Climate Callout competition, selected to represent the UK at the Copenhagen Children's Climate Forum in December.

Hi Everyone! As this is my first ever blog post, this is a pretty weird experience for me. Then again, the whole of the Copenhagen prep is a pretty steep learning curve - and I think the purpose of this blog is to keep anyone who's interested in what we've been doing so far.

After our first meeting in London (which was great fun and told us a lot more about what we'll be doing) I've been put in charge of the campaigns that we are running ourselves.

The main one is to get Gordon Brown to attend the Copenhagen conference. We think this is really important as it will show the world that the UK prioritises combating climate change and will help the push towards a strong, fair deal at Copenhagen in December (anyway, we're going, so why on Earth can't he?!)

If you'd like to sign up to this petition, you can do so here. We're also trying to get a petition on the Number 10 website, which we'll try to advertise as well. The hope is to get a large number of people behind us, so that when we send a letter to the PM, or if we get to meet with a minister, we can say that we have LOADS of young people in support of our petition, which will be alot more impressive!

I'm starting to get really excited about going to Copenhagen now - it's going to be such an awesome experience, meeting people from around the globe with so very different climate change experiences to ours. The whole thing has got me a lot more enthused about climate-related activities and has spurred me on to get stuck in again!

Well thanks for reading this, and I hope we'll be able to let you know about everything we're doing in the future, and about how you can get involved in some nice, tame, climate activism!

Hello from the Copenhagen 4's Katie

Katie Haywood, 17, from Worcester, is one of the four winners of UNICEF's Big Climate Callout competition, selected to represent the UK at the Copenhagen Children's Climate Forum in December.

The past few weeks have been pretty frantic for me, especially since I got back to school and started studying for my AS Levels. There are so many fantastic campaigns leading up to Copenhagen that I couldn’t resist getting involved!

Firstly, I have been recruiting for Power Shift, an environmental conference for young people, which is being held in London in October. Secondly, I have been busy organising my own 350 event, called Hand’s Up! The idea is to collect 350 hand prints from individuals and organisations around my local community, which I am going to display in the city centre on 24 October, the global Day of Action.

My role within the Copenhagen team is to facilitate our involvement in such campaigns, and raise awareness of them among other young people. My county council have also helped me arrange a meeting with local ecoschools committees, where we will discuss messages that I can take to the Children’s Climate Forum.

The first preparation weekend at the UNICEF head office was great fun, and it was really nice to spend time with the rest of the team. We’ve already got really exciting plans for our work leading up to Copenhagen, including launching a campaign to get Gordon Brown to go the Conference.

I still can’t quite believe what an amazing opportunity we have been given. It just shows that the world is starting to take young people seriously, so make sure you are shouting about what really matters to you!

Hello from the Copenhagen 4's Graeme

Graeme, 14, from Glasgow, is one of the four winners of UNICEF's Big Climate Callout competition, selected to represent the UK at the Copenhagen Children's Climate Forum in December.

Hello, my Name is Graeme McGhee I am 14 years old and I come from the city of Glasgow in Bonnie Scotland. I am always up for a laugh, love playing badminton and love watching the comedy panel show Mock the Week XD.

I am one of the four young people who will be representing the views of young people at the Children's Climate Change Forum in Copenhagen this December. I would like to think that I know a fair amount about climate change as well as politics. Climate change is a serious issue that we have to act upon now and, as a generation, we must work together to prevent this problem in the future too.

I have already set up a few events and discussions locally and citywide that have sparked interest on this issue throughout Scotland as well. At the start of October I will hopefully be interviewing the Scottish Minister for Finance and Sustainable Growth (John Swinney) about climate change.

Although we are only young citizens we can still make an impact on the world around us and influence decision-making all over the world.