Rio+20: epic fail?

The text was ad ref'd too soon. That means that they closed the text and made a decision to accept it before Rio+20 began. This made a lot of young people depressed by the lack of urgency, lack of concrete changes and lack of potential of the document.

I have been insanely busy and sleeping less than 3 hours a day for the last few months…which means that I have really missed out on a lot. This includes personal time, social media, eating and even blogging. Today, I am sitting in a corner listening to Ban ki Moon talk about youth and MDGs as the conference lies in ruins and wonder…was anything really worth it?

“If we have commitment instead of ambition we would have the means to find the resources “stated Marina Silva an Environmental activist. She said that she has learnt from the young that what moves the word is “commitment” rather than “ambition” can move the world. But I have been part of the Major Group of Children and Youth. I have seen the commitment we have all exhibited. I have been in negotiations until 7am (from 7am the DAY before). I have watched young people work 100+ hours and try to engage with negotiators. Although we were constantly blocked, asked to leave by security at the request of the negotiations chair and sleep deprived—we have really TRIED. We have young and children teaching each other how to lobby negotiators who make decisions that impact our world. That impact our future. But sometimes it feels like we are all working for a different future than decision makers. It is highly satisfying to work for 40 hours and talk to 192 governments to get informal and formal education as a paragraph in the text…but that was agreed language. The epic lacks of mentions of planetary boundaries is a red line for me and for many young people but governments seem happy to accept that. It’s scary!

I am tired of hearing governments ask "how do we engage youth" or that we have "full civil society participation" when we are excluded from the negotiating rooms in the final day or asked to leave despite being in a half filled room. The young people here that represent billions have not been happy but it seems ridiculous that this is a never ending pattern.

Do we have to accept this reality? No. Should you? No.

The signs are there that youth are able to make change happen....