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Ulaanbaatar (UB) initiative
September 4th, 2008
We, the 50 youth from China, Japan, Korea, and Mongolia in the 4th TUNZA NorthEast Asia Youth Environment Network Conference, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia convened on the theme “Youth partnership on climate change in North East Asia” and released action plans from 2008-2009 at national and regional levels.
We declare that every sector and person has to do something to mitigate climate change and promote youth partnership because everybody’s participation is needed in addressing global issues.
In terms of this, we will insist every sector to follow the statement we made and we suggested.
To individuals,
We kindly urge to kick the bad habits and begin using eco-friendly products. We should, at least, turn off electric appliances whenever we are not using them, or using air-conditioning. We should also use less carbon emitting products, recycle, reuse, and use bicycles or share cars.
To governments,
We urge governments to implement or strengthen environment education in schools, review policies to promote early environment education, and cooperate with NGOs and academic authorities. As we have done every year, we should try to consistently lobby the government.
To private sectors,
First of all, private sectors should not damage the environment, thinking not only about their profits but also investing in the field of environment. Also private sectors have to develop partnership with the youth and recruit them in environment activities
Although we don’t have enough power to improve modern technology or change laws, we have the opportunity and ability to accomplish activities such as lobbying and influencing people around us by raising awareness.
We have to try our best to mitigate climate change and make large efforts because we are the youths who will lead the future society and who can bring great changes to the world.
ACTION PLANS:
Group 1: advocacy
We, the youth at the 4th TUNZA NEAYEN in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia will launch the 2009 World Environment Day campaign. World Environment Day is the day we, youth, can raise our voice to public. The main targets that we would like to convey our message are general public, government and companies. In order to strongly convey our voices to a large number of people, winning sponsor is a very important step. We will get strong supports from media and government for the same campaign we conducted last year in the four countries in the same date which will be June 5th of 2009.
We believe that it is just the beginning for our TUNZA NEAYEN long term future advocacy activity, and we will try our best to successfully hold future events.
Group 2: Green Campus Project
Based on experiences of participants from different countries, we came to the conclusion that the past campus projects had mainly focused on spreading awareness, exchanging experiences, and developing ourselves and that the future campus projects should focus on fulfilling those three goals. We came up with the specific action plans for each goal of campus project.
As for spreading awareness, the youths will hold photo exhibitions on environment, create a website (blog) through which youths will continue their interaction, and participate in trips that would help the youths feel the environmental issues as well as acquire knowledge on environment. We will also publish a handbook for each country that mainly focuses on that country’s specific environmental issues. For developing ourselves, we thought about producing ecological map of our school campus (both inside the campus and the environment around the campus) so that we can learn about our school ecosystem and share knowledge with youths from different backgrounds. Lastly for exchanging experiences, we will hold university network based conferences to strengthen the youth voice. Although I mentioned each action plan as a subcategory of one goal, many of the plans actually fulfill several goals, so we believe that if youths work hard to implement these specific projects on a campus basis, we will be able to have positive influence on dealing with climate changes.
Group 3: Youth Publication
To give awareness and knowledge about climate change, and to give chances for exchanges and interactions to youths (in Northeast Asia), we, youth publication team decided to publish the Status of Climate Change in NEA. This book will contain key climate change issues, case studies about status of climate change in each countries, and youth contributions. We are planning to publish one month before the World Environment Day, on May 5th, to celebrate the day. We promise that we will actively participate in terms of advertising, collecting contributions, commentating, and distributing our book.
We strongly believe that this book will be a bridge between two separate islands, daily life and climate change issues.
Group 4: Online-Networking
We, as the 4th TUNZA NEAYEN conference participants, recognize the need for TUNZA NEAYEN to create a new official website as a mean of creating a network among youth in North East Asia to design an effective way to communicate with one another and to draw attention to the relevant regions regarding North East Asia’s environmental concerns especially focused on the climate change crisis.
First, the four TUNZA NEAYAN nations - China, Japan, Korea and Mongolia – by means of online-network teams of nations, environment organizations and voluntary efforts of individual members, will post national issues or activity reports regarding environmental constraints in their nation.
Second, TUNZA NEAYEN members will be able to have access to an open forum on the website to discuss issues that concern the environment in North East Asia.
Third, we will implement a log-in system on the website necessary to prohibit unnecessary postings or access.
Fourth, we will endorse a unified medium - specifically instant messenger -- to communicate online to maintain a study and sustainable communication network among TUNZA NEAYEN members that will facilitate necessary online conferences to address urgent issues.
Group 5: Lobbying
As youth, we have the rights to get involved in decision making process on environmental issues as the future generation and stakeholders of the international society. Thus, we need helps from the authorities to realize our action plans. To effectively deliver our message to the authorities, we need to go through the process of lobbying.
Specifically, we would like to target the member states of UNFCCC and secretariats within NEAYEN through following action plans. Japan, China, and Republic of Korea are the top three global emitters from Asia. The role of those countries in addressing climate change is important.
First, we will identify stakeholders and research on their policies and come up with how to deliver our messages in a relevant way to them.
Second, we will analyze how much impact each stakeholder has and how can we contact them through our resources.
Third, we will make an effort to build capacity of TUNZA NEAYEN through cooperation of publication and online networking groups by introducing an offline and online training course and developing training materials on lobbying |
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