During the Mock Cop 27 event in Inverness, different schools came together to deliberate and discuss the climate resolutions they had chosen. Eleven schools attended the meeting this year, and there were some great discussions throughout the day.
The event started off with the opening statements from each country and organisation. It was immediately clear that China was against anyone who stood in their way, and would exterminate competition if necessary. Other countries were more sympathetic however, and everyone stated their main goals and struggles that they hoped would be resolved during the conference.
Negotiations
Next came the negotiations. As demonstrated throughout the debate, there were varying views on what should be done to improve climate change. Many countries made deals with others in order to get the main thing that they required from the deliberation. However, not all deliberations went smoothly. At one point, the USA and the UK were having quite a heated debate, in which the UK claimed “we can cause World War Three”, and the USA swiftly followed with “the UK sucks.” Drama aside, there were some very good disputes and results from all the consultations.
"It’s great that young people are getting involved and they’ll develop some key skills and knowledge."
In between the countries’ meetings, there were breaking news reports - from students, to students – where delegates could catch up on all the latest gossip and secrets found out by the ferreting team of reporters, who presented their findings after much eavesdropping and interviewing.
Today teachers were able to observe their students and see how well they debated against the other teams. We got a quote from one of our teachers saying: “It’s great that young people are getting involved and they’ll get some key skills and knowledge. It’s good to feel represented as it’s your future.” It was fairly obvious that all the teachers were very impressed with the students and their work.
Results
The results of the conference were fairly good. They were tabulated and the majority vote was the winner. Most of the countries agreed on these choices, and everyone was quite happy and proud with the results. The general host for the day, Gemma Burnside, from the Open University in Scotland said: “I’ve been incredibly impressed today, and I think everyone has been very fair with each other. People are taking it seriously and it’s nice to see how interested people are with this topic and how they are using their voices to discuss it.”
"We all felt that our voices were unheard, unanswered cries that politicians simply ignored."
Power to the People
After the voting, the students were all asked a few questions about who has the power to and who should stop climate change. The general answer for these was ‘everyone’, which could not be more true. They were also asked who they felt that politicians would listen to the most in this worldwide debate. Unsurprisingly, the answer was, other politicians.
Following all that deliberating, what we then found was that many people feel that they are still not listened to when it comes to stopping these problems and in the grand scheme of mitigating climate change as a whole. We all felt that our voices were unheard, unanswered cries that politicians simply ignored, which is perhaps why we are taking so long to figure this out. This needs to change, and we need the power of all the people out there to drive that change.
"We need the power of all the people out there to drive change."
Heroes of the Future
All in all, this Mock Cop event has been a huge success, thanks to all the helpful organisers and teachers involved; but most importantly, to all the dedicated delegates and razor-sharp reporters. The students of today are the heroes of the future, and they demonstrated that extremely well at this conference. (Well, apart from the bit where China said they were going to nuke the USA, but we all have our flaws, don’t we?)
Read more about the event here
