As the lack of posts over recent weeks suggest, this blog has come to its natural conclusion.

Beginning with the excitement of the prospect of going to the Arctic, learning immensely about the science of climate change, the actual Voyage itself, the wonderful friendships, connections and ideas that came out of it, and then ending with the journey beyond.

The Voyage for the Future has fundamentally changed my life. Not only the fact that I spend every day working on the organisation I co-founded that seeks to build a united generational movement on climate change, but also that my world-view has grown tremendously. I have learned incredible amounts of new things, and am happy to say that applying for this WWF program was one of the best decisions of my life.

Thank you for being part of this journey, and all your wonderful comments and encouragement.

It’s taken me a while to realise, but it’s people like us who we’ve been waiting for.

Thank you,

Casper

ps. Once our full ukycc.org site is up (later this year), I will be blogging with various other UK youth climate leaders - so keep your eyes peeled ; )

Happy New Year!

As we were all celebrating at midnight, it was exciting to look ahead to 2009 knowing this is going to be a massive year. We know that with you, we are a vibrant, strong, generational movement that will achieve many victories! But first, a look back at December…

UN Climate Change Negotiations

After a lot of preparation and exciting night train journeys, we made it to the UN Climate Change negotiations in Poland, ready to spend the next two weeks living cosily all under the same roof and sharing beds. Fortunately, we didn’t get too much time to sleep, as we were out and about, suited and booted, running from press conference to side-event, from action to meetings with the big cheeses.

And one particular big cheese invited us for a beer! You guessed it, we had a date with Mr Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Minister. For over an hour we gave him food for thought on new coal-fired power stations, Heathrow expansion, popular mobilisation and more. He sounded promising, but the proof will be in the pudding.

We also delivered some damn good speeches during the negotiations sharing our vision of a 2050 world where countries worked together to safeguard our future.

We were there with over 400 international youth from over 50 nations. Together, we lead by example on how to work together by launching Project Survival. Over 90 countries and numerous famous faces signed up to commit to a global climate treaty that safeguards the survival of all countries and peoples. Our message: Survival is not negotiable.

Finally, we got hundreds of people from around the UK to call Gordon Brown to demand sensible EU climate targets. The campaign demonstrated that people want to engage our decision makers and are ready for a safe climate future! Thank you for calling!

If you want to check out a nice little video roundup, have a look over here.

Our Time Is Now Round-Up

A massive thank you to all of you who marched with us at the National Climate March!

Dancing around with high spirits and colourful banners (like “coal is so 1908″), UKYCC joined people all around the world calling for the change that we are ready for. Whilst Matt bravely spoke to a crowd of 10,000 next to climate heroes such as Caroline Lucas, hundreds of young people joined together in Poland to call for global action on climate change. It was chilly but up-lifting day with young people finally taking a platform on this issue.

Thank you for all your support during 2008. Now we’re going to work as hard as we can to ensure that 2009 goes down in the history books for the right reasons.

Bring it on!

Casper, Emma, Matt, Ben and Kate

A message from the UK Youth Delegation to the UN Climate Talks:

Right now, Gordon Brown is preparing to meet with other European Heads of State to sign a crucial climate change deal. This deal is the first of its kind - and the rest of the world will use this as their example. If it’s not ambitious enough (and all signs point that way) this deal will jeopardise our future.

We have a small window of opportunity to change this.

In the next 24 hours let’s get as many of us as possible to call Gordon Brown and ask him for the strong climate deal that we deserve!

http://www.ukyd.org/callgordon

Here are the steps:

1. Call this number - 0207 930 4433 (No.10 switchboard)
2. Say who you are, where you’re from and ask to leave a message for Gordon Brown
3. The operator will tell you that you can’t leave a message and should send a letter instead. Tell him/her that this is urgent, and you want to see Gordon push for a strong climate deal on Thursday
4. Call three friends and get them to call Gordon too
5. Forward this video on to everyone you know
6. Feel warm and fuzzy that you’ve exercised your democratic right!

THANK YOU

Love,
Hanna, Mal, Liz, Lizzie, Jo, Katie, Kirsty, Dan, Guppi, Casper, Emma, Isabel, Adam, Jamie and Amy
The UK Youth Delegation to the UN climate negotiations in Poland