At the United Nations.

Late last year, in the closing month of 2010, I found myself having a phone con-versation with my superior at an NGO I belong to. This itself was not unusual. The topic, however, was. Did I want to go to New York City in March to participate in some UN meetings? Invitations to events in other cities and countries come fairly often if you’re involved in the environmental movement, but the nature of it is that that you have to turn down most of them. This time though, they were actually offering to send me there, and so I jumped on it.

 
At the time, I didn’t know much about the 2nd Prepcom for the Earth Summit, the meeting I was set to attend, or the Rio process in general (the Rio process includes the earth summit, rio+20, itself, as well as the 3 prepatory committee meetings). I was certainly aware of it, as anyone who follows the environmental policy sphere would have been, but my knowledge of what actually went on behind those checkpoints was minimal. However, We Canada, our organisation, is all about influencing the earth summit (happening next year in Rio, hence the name), and so it seemed essential to educate ourselves about the process. A person can read thousands of books, but there is no substitute for actually being there to experience the thing.

Fast forward a few months, and on March 4th, I was touching down at JFK. After 2 days of side events (related to, but not part of the Rio process or the UN), as well as exploring Manhattan, for which two days is woefully insufficient, the PrepCom itself began. Getting my pass was difficult, not because I didn’t have the required documentation or hadn’t been cleared, but because they had run out of blank cards. Eventually though, I did get in, and it was a fascinating place to be.

 
Sure, on the surface, watching each country’s representative take far too long to answer a ques-tion assigned to them by the chair is incredibly dull. Eventually though, you start to understand UN-ish, and begin to detect meaning in what these representatives say. What is on the surface bland and meaningless fluff has in fact got a great deal of meaning. It’s like learning a new language - the more you understand what’s being said, the more you want to learn more. Thankfully, learning was easy as I (and the 3 others from our initiative who went), had two experienced Canadian delegates to show us around and to make sure we were up to speed.

This was a fascinating experience. I got to see what really does go on behind those check-points that tourists see whenever they visit the UN. From the outside, it seems out of reach, out of touch and in the main, irrelevant. However, that is not the case. The fact that somebody from High School was in these negotiations shows that they are not out of reach. The people who go to these meetings are just like you and I. They are people who realise that what goes on behind those check-points has a huge bearing on the outside world. For that reason, it’s invaluable to understand how it works.

Reposted from a past article.