By Dani Thompson<\/p>\n
During the last two weeks at the conference, I have become\u00a0increasingly\u00a0involved as a member of YOUNGO here in Durban. In case you are new to this blog, YOUNGO stands for “Youth Non-Government Organization” and you can learn more about it from my previous blog post linked here<\/a>. Getting to know youth from around the world who share the same passions and ambitions as myself was an experience I will not soon forget. However, aside from the surface level friendships and social interactions, the dysfunction of \u00a0YOUNGO as a collective group and their inability to create unified and mass youth action at the COP has been undeniably apparent. This is not necessarily a personal opinion, but one which has been a point of discussion and debate\u00a0among\u00a0the majority of the youth involved in YOUNGO. However, just as the UNFCCC delegations seem to have miraculously come together at the 11th hour, so has the youth.<\/p>\n Yesterday, at the daily morning meeting of YOUNGOs, we decided on a clear message which we would spread through the halls of the conference: “You’ve run out of excuses. We’re running out of time.”\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>This was one of the first messages we were able to agree on as a whole, and it got everyone excited and energized for the final push we were going to make in support\/demand of global agreements at the COP. Later in the morning, a new friend of mine from SustainUS, Abigail Borah, was removed from the conference for speaking out for a more urgent and ambitious climate treaty. Read entire article, U.S.\u00a0Youth Ejected from Climate Talks While Calling For Necessary Climate Progress<\/a>, for more information, a video, and pictures of what happened.\u00a0Abigail\u00a0also wrote the script for the video created by U.S. youth (which Maggie Rees, Sam Parker, Esther Babson, and I are in!!!) calling for action from U.S. congress and the Obama Administration for climate action. Watch the video below…<\/p>\n