Copenhagen 4: Letter to Gordon Brown and Final Prep. Weekend

Hi Everyone!

Sorry it's been a while since our last blog, but it's good because we've now got a lot to update you on!

Last weekend (6-8 Nov.) the four of us travelled down to London for what was our final meeting in preparation for the Children's Climate Forum. It was a really fun weekend, and once again we left feeling inspired by each other's enthusiasm.

Having arrived at our hotel on Friday night, we got cracking early on Saturday with some public speaking training, which was a really amazing experience. Jennifer, the expert who was training us, was fantastic, and got us talking about all kinds of crazy things off the top of our heads. We each learnt a lot about ourselves and how we come across to an audience, and picked up some great tips as to how to improve our speaking, which will be really helpful at the CCF.

In the afternoon we talked more about the Forum itself and what we would be doing there, and discussed the presentation that we are to give to our host Danish school (you can see the presentation here, even as we are making it - we're not quite there yet, but we think it's looking really cool already!). By the evening, although we were completely worn out by the day's activities, we had a lovely pizza dinner and went to watch Up! (definitely worth a watch) in 3-D in the West End, which was really good, albeit in quite a sad and scary way! Then Luke kindly tried to give us a really fascinating explanation as to how the 3-D glasses worked and how they could be used to demonstrate quantum mechanical effects, but by that time we were too tired to care and instead politely pretended we were listening.

In the morning we finished off a few more things, such as our choices for the workshops we would be doing in Copenhagen. We had to resort to pulling names out of a hat at least twice, and it turns out that the hats love Graeme! We ended up (after MUCH deliberation) being very happy with our choices, and it's great to know what we'll be doing while we are there. There was a bit of rush at the end to get our exhibition stand created - this is where we'll be making a display about Britain for the other delegations to look at on the first day of the Forum. We ended up not quite getting it finished, but luckily the wonderful UNICEF staff were (all too) keen to help finish the painting and sticking for us!

We also, finally, got our letter to Gordon Brown finished, signed and sent off! Wooo! Basically we are thanking him for agreeing to attend COP15, telling him about who we are, what the CCF is, and what we are doing prior to it. We also ask to see if he will meet with us so that we can hand over the Declaration of Young People's views after the Forum to him personally, which would be an awesome opportunity for us to tell him and the UK public about what we have been doing. You can see the final letter here. We think it's a great summary of everything we have been doing and our most important views about climate change. Let's hope he agrees to meet us! You can see the letter below:Well I think that's about it! We are so insanely excited about Copenhagen - in two weeks' time we'll be there! Make sure you keep reading this blog - we'll be updating it regularly with all the exciting things we're doing!

Thanks for reading!

Tagd gets blogging for Climate Change Blog Action Day

Today is Climate Change Blog Action Day, when thousands of bloggers around the world post their thoughts on climate change. The aim is to spark discussion on this pressing global issue.


Apparently, it will be one of the “largest social change events on the web”. Even Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s at it.

Never one to miss out on a party, Tagd is also doing a blog for the Climate Change Blog Action Day (you’re reading it right now!). Climate change is one of UNICEF’s central campaigns, after all.

So we thought we’d use this opportunity to fill you in on the climate change campaign activities Tagd is involved with.

As you might have gathered from the posts below, Tagd are sending four young people to Copenhagen to represent the UK in the Children’s Climate Change Forum in December, ahead of the very important United Nations Climate Change Conference, where world leaders will meet to formulate a global agreement on climate change.

The ‘Copenhagen 4’, Cressie, Graeme, Katie and Luke (pictured above), won the chance to attend the forum on behalf of young people in the UK after entering UNICEF’s Big Climate Callout competition. Stay tuned for more enlightening posts from our foursome on their preparations for the trip and the forum itself over the coming days and weeks. You can also keep up to date with UNICEF’s work leading up to the conference by registering with Tagd.

Tagd is also promoting loads of ways you can get directly involved in the climate change campaign. You can email your MP, asking him to contact Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, to demand that he takes decisive action at the Copenhagen conference. Or, you can join us at the Wave march, the UK’s biggest ever protest in support of action on climate change, in London on Saturday 5 December. If you can’t make it, why not paint your hands blue and send us your photos, which we’ll bring to the march.

And if you’re feeling particularly inspired, Tagd has details on how you can organise a ‘Wave Day’ with your school, youth group or your friends. We’ve produced a downloadable climate change resource pack, filled with tips and ideas on how you can take action on climate change.

So there you have it. But now we’ve done our bit and got you up to speed on Tagd’s climate campaign work, why not get blogging yourself? If you’re passionate about this issue, you couldn’t choose a better day to start. And even if you don’t have a blog, you can do a post on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Bebo.

For more inspiration, check out our tips on writing an article and getting creative.