Diary from Copenhagen—part 1
Home » Blog » Diary from Copenhagen—part 1Seventeen-year-old Phoebe Hunt is one of five young Kiwi climate ambassadors, aged between 14 and 17, who are attending the the UN Children’s Fund Children’s Climate Forum in Copenhagen this week, along with more than 160 other delegates from 40 countries.
Above: New Zealand's delegation to the UN Children’s Fund Children’s Climate Forum in Copenhagen
Phoebe, from Western Heights High School in Rotorua, led a team of young people in auditing and reducing her school’s energy, water and waste use, making it the first carbon-neutral school in New Zealand.
This is her diary.
Sunday 29 November
Today began at 4am, when I awoke hungry and ready for a late lunch or possibly an early dinner. The day improved quickly as it was time for breakfast and meeting more smiling ambassadors. Then it was time to set up our exhibition of how climate change is affecting New Zealand. It was amazing, looking around the magnificent old town hall at the other countries' exhibitions.
Copenhagen is a beautiful place, with lots of old buildings and so many bikes everywhere! Beautiful people on bikes is Copenhagen in a nutshell.
It is surprising that in Copenhagen very little recycling seems to happen. The plastic bottles are reused, but there seems to be a lot of unnecessary waste that is incinerated. It seems to me that Copenhagen has clean transport very well organised, but lacks on waste management. Meanwhile, New Zealand is the opposite.
Tuesday 1 December
The conference has been amazing. It has been so much fun meeting people from other countries with diverse backgrounds. The experiences I have learned about in the past few days would not be found anywhere else. I feel incredibly lucky to live in New Zealand and I have realised that I take my lifestyle for granted.
This experience is one-of-a-kind and I feel so honoured and humbled to be here with all of these inspirational youth.Our schedules are very busy and it is hard to find time to fit in writing or social time—although this is good because we came to Copenhagen for this exact reason.
It was amazing to meet kids at a local school to see how different it would be to live here. The school is currently having climate week, so we were invited to see their research and ask them questions. It was quite funny with the language barrier. I was very glad they made the effort to speak in English, as my Danish needs some serious work! I am sure the fun will continue and I cannot wait to have more workshops and learn more from my fellow delegates. I will try to write again soon. Until then, farevil!
