Mock COP 23 Success

News from Charters' Eco Society….brought to you by Amy, Elena and Juliette

We as Year 12s love to represent the wider concerns for the environment and come up with projects to embed climate concern and action into our school. Perhaps one of our more whimsical yet functional projects was the bee wall, a wall of bee-attracting plants that conserves space whilst also serving as a visual reminder of the importance of nature in such urbanised spaces and institutions.

Another angle we have attempted to corner the climate crisis by is food choice; food, as the general public is becoming increasingly aware of, is one of the main facets' individuals can change about their lives to reduce carbon footprints. Being able to tackle food choice from a huge source ie. A school canteen is a great position to be in to make tangible differences in carbon emissions from meat and dairy. It is well-known that tackling any problem individually, even as an individual school, will never be as powerful as communal efforts.

This is why we visited Edgbarrow School recently to partake in a Mock COP, wherein we represented Egypt and had a lot of fun debating and took away a lot from the discussion. We learnt about how governments all around the world need to cooperate to reduce carbon emissions, and how diplomacy is the key to meeting aims. It was an amazing opportunity. We also made the following pledges:

• Aiming to get more of the younger years involved and a particular push for a better recycling scheme
   
• Hosting events like these in the future and aiming to reduce the number of emissions from our school
   
• Addressing the issue of single use plastics in our school and reflection of the amount of food waste we produce.
  
  

This was our opening statement:

Hello all, we are the delegates of Egypt. We are an emerging nation  due to the economy’s dependence on the energy sector. Climate change is a prevalent issue, especially as our livelihood is based around  the Nile. This is threatened by the reduction of rainfall over the previous 30 years.   

We would like to draw your attention to the fact that our emissions were only 0.7% of the global emissions in 2021. This is why we believe the majority of funding for any schemes must come from those already developed nations who have the money, infrastructure, and knowledge. 

Currently, we are not at liberty to disclose information about our climate change strategy policy for 2050. However,  we have plans to invest up to $4 billion to generate green hydrogen gas, in collaboration with the European bank, and in Cairo we are setting up a electric monorail. We’ve also established an air pollution management programme as well as investment towards sustainable water supplies. 

As a global community, it is our duty to ensure the survival of our economies and our world. Egypt, and all other low income or emerging countries, cannot be left stranded and suffering for a climate change that was caused by the industrialization of the developed countries sitting in this room.