As a major activity we have planed for quite a long time, the China-U.S. youth gathering unfolded at Thursday night in ways that went beyond our expectations. My expectation.

As a major activity we have planed for quite a long time, the China-U.S. youth gathering unfolded at Thursday night in ways that went beyond our expectations. My expectation.

We had 120 American youth and Chinese youth to talk about our shared future in Copenhagen University. While we order plenty of Chinese food from local restaurant, our American counterparts brought Cokes and Spirits (sorry I had to complain about this). Accompanied by delicious food, we first had a round-table conversations about our road to Copenhagen.

(Al Gore passed through me just now...while i was writing this at 11:30 am Monday, and folks looking important kept coming in)

While I was excited to hear about the American youth's stories of fundraising through phone calling, bake sales, letter writing, etc. I again felt the blessing from Mount Holyoke College for making the process less painful for me. I felt I was supposed to be a bridge that facilitated the conversations, channeling conversations about differences and common grounds in culture and history. Yet I started telling my story with my experience on the Colorado farm. I told them how powerful I was when realizing the interconnectedness of our planet and removing cultural and language barriers. How common we all are in face of our

A wonderful particle from my colleague

China-US youth worship feeds trust (By Si Tingting) excerpt

Among them is a self-organized Chinese youth delegation of 40 people, supported partly by funding from Nike and Ford Foundation, who only asked the Chinese young people to have concrete conversations with their US counterparts in return. The US delegation, which has a much larger size of 350 students aged between 16 and 26, came largely on money made from bake sales and donations from their community.

After an five hour interaction on a wide range of topics such as why Copenhagen conference matters to them, their evaluation of the governments’ emission reduction targets and how would they pressure the government to take quick actions, the young people from both countries reached the consensus on a lot of issues and most importantly, they learned to establish trust and to understand each others’ difference, like in China, initiative in climate issues is top-down (from government to grassroots), while in the US, it’s bottom-up.

They vowed to lead their governments in more green initiatives and in establishing trust, a cornerstone for future cooperation.

“I don’t think our governments trust each other, but we certainly have to trust each other,” Ben Wessel, a leading US youth delegate with SustainUS, an NGO of young people advancing sustainable development and youth empowerment in the US.

The youth in Copenhagen from all of the world are talking about shifts in culture and priorities in values. “People of my generation began to realize that prosperity is not how big your houses or cars. In the US and many countries in West Europe, there is an idea of excess is a virtue and there is an idea we should reward those who use more of our resources. But our generation is ready to make their choices,” said Marcie Smith, a youth organizer from US. According to Smith, the 350-strong US team is ready to pressure the US congressional representatives and President Barack Obama when they arrived in Copenhagen and their network in US is currently doing many campaigns inside the country.

“I do think President Obama is listening to the young people, but the congressional reality from the US has made it very difficult to move forward,” Marcie Smith, who freshly graduated from college and is now learning how to grow her own food on an organic farm in stead of going to a graduate school.

Here in Copenhagen, Smith met a lot of people from Zambia and Nepal who are suffering from climate change. But back in the US, people do not have to deal with that yet, said Smith. “The reality is that my Zambian friend, my Nepali friend, they are carrying the burden of my country’s carbon emission and that’s the reason why we need a fair, ambitious and binding treat in Copenhagen,” said Smith.

Besides pledging determination in verbal form, the students have laid out a few concrete action proposals. A young Chinese entrepreneur named Huang Lei is actually in talks with several Chinese youths and American youths about initiating a joint business project in clean energy, while some students are thinking about writing commentary articles to the big media about what they think US and China could do together in fighting the climate war.

In contrast, the Chinese youth seemed to be happier about their government’s commitment and action in fighting climate change. “We had a prime minister to take care ofthat and I don’t think this happens in other countries,” Li Lina, a graduate student of international studies. “But I don’t want to comment on whether China’s emission reduction goal is ambitious enough, because I don’t have enough knowledge to comment,” she said. “At this stage, we care more about the solutions,” she added.