The U.N., Diplomatic Posturing, and Youth

So I was fortunate enough to end up at the United Nations' 18th Commission on Sustainable Development - a week and a half long event which brings together delegates, various for and non profit organizations, and a variety of other people to talk about, make speeches about, and theoretically make progress on, a variety of sustainable development issues (in this case, mining, waste management, and transportation). Ignoring the fact that sustainable mining is an oxymoron, it's important as part of the global supply chain and providing income in less developed countries. It's hard to say that there was any one lesson or striking action or event, but there were a bunch of interesting ideas that came out of it.

1. I was there formally representing the Global Commons. In my definition, this is the idea that resources from an area belong to the people in that area - from minerals under my house belonging to me to the atmosphere belonging to all of us. Rather than the current exploitative system that happens in third-world countries, GC'ers would like to see commons trusts for resources, which would be collaborative partnerships rather than demanding heirarchies (essentially). I went in thinking that this would be an interesting niche idea, and perfectly willing to talk about it. I came out thinking that if you could get groundwork for creating them, commons trusts are a great way to do bottom-up sustainability change. However, aside from being able to talk to people from all around the world, I'm not sure that the U.N. is the appropriate place to talk about these - they're not the sort of thing you can really put governmental policies in place to help with, since they are by nature a local thing.

2. I now know how important women are in raising poultry in Ghana (answer: very).

3. Know how people talk about diplomats and governments not saying anything? It's pretty much true. There are a lot of nuances which can say a lot (in theory), but very few governments said anything truly substantial, and for all the constant busyness, I'm not sure anything really got accomplished (but I was only there for a few days)

4. The youth caucus (which I joined) has the role of representing the next generations (which looks good for the U.N.), and is allowed to say things a bit more frankly (and we did). Whether this makes us critical or means that no one takes us seriously I'm not sure.

5. There was a serious lack of engineers (or people with a serious practical bent focused on large scale solutions).

6. All real work is done in the cafeteria and in hallways.

Would I do it again? Probably.