*The Debatewise Blog
First day of GYP UN Summit debates reveals optimism, commitment and some remarkable stories
The two main debates of the first day of debating were: ‘Is the Copenhagen conference going to be a success?’ and: ‘Will “Climategate” threaten the deal at Copenhagen?’The success question floats on defining what success is. The aim of the Copenhagen conference is to create a binding treaty that will commit the nations of the world to cutting CO2 emissions to slow global warming. However since the US congress will not pass a climate change bill in time this is unlikely to happen. So what is success? The detail of a treaty worked out and being made legal only when the US climate change bill is introduced sometime next year? Commitments on transferring technology? Setting up an adaptation fund?
100s of people from the 1000-strong Debatewise Global Youth Panel joined the first day of climate change debating – which attracted some eloquently-put arguments from many different perspectives. The result overall view on whether the Copenhagen conference will be a success was upbeat, with 60% believing it would be.
The ‘Climategate’ debate centred around events during last week, when it was alleged that the head of University of East Anglia's climatic research unit had attempted to suppress contradictory data on rising temperatures, while systematically ignoring any contradictory data the unit had collected. This research unit is one of the most respected around the world, so this story was grabbed by sceptics who are now demanding the whole climate change/temperature rise issue debate be reopened.
The Climategate issue led to some very feisty and emotive debates on all sides by the Global Youth Panel. In the end, 64% thought it could in some way affect the outcome of the UN summit.
Committed debaters overcome obstacles to contribute
There have also been some remarkable demonstrations of commitment by members of the Global Youth Panel to the climate change debates.
On Monday, as the UN summit opened, there were the largest anti-government demonstrations in months in Iran, as tens-of-thousands of students took to the streets. This led to a crackdown by riot police and pro-government militia. There was also a crackdown on communications, particularly the Internet. Nevertheless the Iranian team battled all kinds of obstacles to find a way of accessing Monday’s debates.
In Bhutan, the team persuaded their Internet service providers to let them have extra bandwidth for free to allow them to take part in the debate.
You may already have read in an earlier blog about Cambodia: Michael (surname unknown) collected about 30 kids together, held practice debates, found an IT person to help and got the Phnom Penh Post to cover the story (Link to Phnom Penh Post article). What’s more, these kids were, in his words: “some of the poorest, most destitute families in Cambodia” and until a few years ago were working in the rubbish-dump in Phnom Penh.
All of which shows just how important climate change issues are, and how much people want their voices to be heard.