During their one week at the United Nations climate change talks, a group of Singaporean youth learnt some vital lessons - that the best-laid environmental plans can go awry, for instance.
At a reception yesterday on the sidelines of the talks in Durban, South Africa, they shared these with Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean and Environment and Water Resources Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, who are in town for the high-level segment of negotiations.
Ms Tong Sian Choo, 24, a final-year Nanyang Technological University (NTU) student, spoke about finding out that some incentives to encourage biofuel production can lead to forest and peat-land clearing, which releases more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
She said: ‘The devil is in the details!’
In their time there, Ms Tong and her peers had bustled about the International Convention Centre, sitting in for negotiations, meeting other international youth groups for discussions, and gleaning ideas on projects to start when they go home.
Others among the 11-strong youth group said they were pleasantly surprised in their meetings.
For instance, they noticed that United States and Chinese youth non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were more than willing to work together on climate change and pollution reduction. This is in contrast to their nations, which are at loggerheads in the climate talks.
The group comprised two student teams which won the inaugural National Climate Change Competition, organised by the National Climate Change Secretariat, with their ideas about recycling and electricity-use tracking, and a group of youth leaders from Singapore environment NGO Avelife, which focuses on social enterprise and the environment.
The winning ideas were picked from 140 entries from schools and tertiary institutions. The NTU team of three came up with a mobile application to track electricity use, while the National University of Singapore team of four campaigned to boost campus recycling by removing trash bins.
After the reception, DPM Teo said: ‘I’m really delighted to see the young people here today from NTU, NUS, Avelife and also from the National Youth Achievement Award Council engaging with young people from other parts of the world, to exchange ideas on how they can play a part and take this forward for all of us.’
