Random fact: Last financial year the World Bank’s private sector arm more than doubled its support for fossil fuel projects to US$2.2 billion, while funding for renewable energy in the same period was a mere US$243 million.

I just got off the flight from Singapore to Toyko and met up with the rest of the AYCC and Pacific Team at Gate 35 in Narita airport, Tokyo. There are so many of us! Yesterday was the final day of the Laureates program in Singapore. It was hard saying goodbye to the rest of the crew; but we’ll stay in touch and I’m already planning collaborations on youth climate campaigns with people from PNG, China, India and Mongolia.

The flight here on ‘All Nippon Airlines” was bizarre. Super bright lights the whole way, freezing cold cabin, they woke us up at 4.30 am even though we weren’t landing until 7am, and then with breakfast they gave us real metal knives with sharp ends! All very strange indeed. And I was so sleep-deprived that when I was making my way to the next flight on an escalator I almost had a micro-sleep at the top and only just stopped myself from falling backwards. This blog could have ended very quickly had that happened …. no doubt some of you would have preferred that 😛

So – as I mentioned earlier, there are a number of Pacific island youth with us. They’re funded through contributions from GetUp! members as well as some fundraising undertaken by AYCC’s ‘Project Survival Pacific’ team. Sitting next to me now is Paul from Vanuatu, who works in the Ministry of Youth and Sport in Vanuatu. We also have a number of AYCC volunteers who have been living in the Pacific this year, working on climate change projects and preparing for Copenhagen with Pacific youth & Governments. It’s great to have a combined Australia-Pacific delegation; collaboration between youth in the region is growing really rapidly and we’ll collaborate even more next year.

I’m too tired to go into any deep political analysis today, so I’ll just describe what’s going on with the team at Gate 35. Everyone is writing blogs for the AYCC site and various local newspapers; our video team is filming us, the Project Survival Team is trying to contact one of the Pacific delegates whose flight was delayed and so she missed her connection, and we’re about to learn our “team dance” of which I will unveil a spectacular video in a later post.

I’m also trying to read a book, “Kyoto2: How to Manage the Global Greenhouse” by Oliver Ticknell. It’s really good; I recommend it.

Next time I write to you I’ll be in Copenhagen!

Anna