So many things are happening at the U.N. Climate Change Summit - it will make your head spin! Bringing awareness and attention to an issue or group can be done in many ways. "Actions" are a large part of the Climate Change Summit and in making statements worldwide. Particular planned "actions" with different organizations and groups must be planned, requested and approved by U.N. with certain regulations and guidelines for all. I just wanted to share some amazing action photos with you here.

These are just some of the incredibly inspiring youth actions that took place at the U.N. Climate Summit.

This past Thursday, one day before the end of the 2009 Conference of Parties (COP 15), I fasted to help call attention to the great injustice of global climate change. Greenhouse gas emissions, which come disproportionately from people in industrialized countries, are imposing serious climate impacts on the rest of the world--droughts and desertification in places like the Horn of Africa, and crop-destroying floods in places like Bangladesh. By emitting like we do, we are depriving people in vulnerable places everywhere of food and other basic means of survival. Forgoing food voluntarily for a day was a small and completely inadequate token of my care for these impacted people.

But I was not the only one fasting. I was joined by hundreds of other temporary "solidarity fasters" from around the world, including fellow Will Steger Foundation delegate Holly Jones, and a brave team of eight long-term hunger strikers and organizers, who created the Climate Justice Fast campaign earlier this year.

I met one of the co-founders of Climate Justice Fast last year when we were in Poznan, Poland for COP 14. She is a 24 year-old Australian named Anna Keenan. Anna's capacity to sacrifice for just climate solutions was evident then as well--the two of us stayed up together at a print shop until four in the morning one night making placards that read "Survival," which we then handed out to official country negotiators for them to place on their desks during the plenary session. This effort, together with a wider coordinated campaign, yielded enough interest in the principle of "Survival" among the negotiators that the chair of one ministerial roundtable inserted a reference to "safeguarding survival of the most vulnerable countries and people" into her Conference summary.

Despite occasional victories like the "Survival" campaign, which originated with a team of youth climate activists and negotiators from small island states, the pace of progress in the UNFCCC has been depressingly slow. The apparent failure of traditional advocacy efforts compelled Anna and Sara Svensson, co-organizer of Climate Justice Fast, to try a more serious approach.

At the end of the UNFCCC's Barcelona negotiating round this past November, during which a bloc of African delegates walked out of the conference center in disgust with industrialized countries' unwillingness to commit to adequate mitigation targets, Sara, Anna, and their team stopped eating, drinking only water, and committed to continue their fast until the world agrees on a fair, ambitious, and binding global climate treaty. Sara described her decision to begin the fast in a press release:

“I undertook this fast in solidarity with those who are suffering the effects of climate change, but also to show my dedication to the climate movement – to show that there is something that I care about more than myself, more than my own personal comfort and gratification.”

Sara and Anna continued their fast for 44 days. They broke it on Saturday morning, drinking juice together with two other long-term strikers at a cafe in Copenhagen. That afternoon I ran into Sara as I entered the Bella Center, where the night before delegates had forged a weak "politically binding" Copenhagen Accord. My mood was grim during much of that day, and my frustration with the shameful outcome of these talks continues. But I felt a new sense of hope after my brief conversation with Sara, who spoke with joy about her first meal since the fast started.

“We have decided to end this fast today because we know that we need to keep on working as climate activists for our whole lifetime," she said. "We will keep on pushing on our governments, harder and harder, until we see the necessary political shifts achieved and a global deal sealed.”

As Obama addressed the plenary hall inside the Bella Center, many watched from outside since NGO's had limited to no access to the center today. His speech echoed through the concrete hall while all stared in silence. Furrowed brows headlined the uncertain glances around the hall at friends and strangers.

Is this the same President that moved us all so deeply just one year ago?

Is this the same President that called for change and the hope of a new future?

These questions, among many others, flooded my brain as a straight-faced Obama recited a cold, political speech that lacked his trademark hope, optimism, inspiration and humanity. The very traits that got him elected seemed to be buried underneath political goals and selfish motives. To his defense, his administration has done so much more than the previous. Yet today, a day that we all secretly (or publicly) hoped would bring a silver lining to the difficult and sometime dismal negotiations, we were left with seemingly empty words.

The moment that instilled great hope, passion and inspiration came from our peer; Juan Carlos is a native to Peru and is here with the SustainUS US delegation. He has been working hard and spent last night in the Bella Center with the other three youth that obtained access. His speech today, written in collaboration with the International Youth Climate Movement speaks to humanity across the globe, demands action and has moved me to continue forward.

Today the Bella Center was bursting at the seems as hordes of observers tried to get into the conference for the first time. This week, things are going to heat up as we try to turn down the heat. Starting tomorrow, presidents and national leaders will begin to arrive, and fewer and fewer youth delegates will be able to get into the conference. On Friday, President Barack Obama will arrive. As the head of the Norwegian Labor Party told me on Friday, "We are skeptical of President Obama after the weak proposal that the United States has put forward, but it is a hopeful sign that he is coming on Friday instead of last week, because that is when there will be the greatest chance of a treaty being forged."

Today, I caught part of a side event about artists and scientists collaborating together to create climate solutions, and then I ran to a meeting with youth delegates from China and India to try to come up with ways of working together, of collaborating together on events and meetings with our representatives here at COP.

Then, I caught the rail to the Danish Film Institute where Chris and I got tickets for four people to go to the observation room while Al Gore spoke tonight.

Tonight, I went with Will, Nicole, and Jerry to see Al Gore speak about the negotiations. Gore asked, "Is there any message that you'd like me to bring with me to my meeting with the negotiators tomorrow?" This is my chance, I thought to myself. He called on me and time stopped for a second as I realized that I was about to ask Vice President Al Gore a question, but what would I ask? I started out by explaining that I am here in Copenhagen at COP-15 with Expedition Copenhagen and a United States youth delegation of 500, and that he needs to bring up the fact that this is our lives we are talking about, this not just a theory, but something that will impact us and future generations personally.

I hit the train running (again!). This time I had to be back at my apartment in time to do a video conference with my HECUA class back in Minnesota. I swept open the door and flipped on my laptop Skype just in time to get the call from Julia. It was so wonderful to see all of their beautiful faces back in the heartland, doing the important work that needs to be done back at home before we've taken our last stand here at the COP15.

If you have recently seen in the news large-scale, high visibility actions staged by youth in and around the Bella Center, I would like to provide another perspective on what's really happening when the media isn't watching. The "front page worthy" photos the media chooses to portray are not truly representational of all the work that's actually being done by youth around the world during the conference. I want to provide some insight into the intensity of the projects youth are working on as they propose global solutions to the climate crisis.

All youth are part of an official provisional constituency called the YOUNGOs, thus the group now has the opportunity to propose amendments to policy during certain official UN sessions. After the Conference of Youth during the first weekend we arrived in Copenhagen, a global movement has erupted among youth to push for policy that will not neglect those who suffer most from climate change. The YOUNGO group, now known as IYCM (International Youth Climate Movement-- and yes, everything at the UNFCCC is in acronyms), has mobilized to work in specific policy groups focused on areas of mitigation, adaptation, finance, and tech transfer in order to propose amendments to the bracketed papers released by different delegations. (The goal is to make the bracketed language unbracketed and put into permanent context. Before any legislation is passed through the UNFCCC, entire papers are bracketed and part of the negotiations entails deciding what language will stay and what will have to be amended for countries to agree on the legislation put forth.) Each of the delegates from our Expedition Copenhagen has been involved with some sort of policy focus and/or other more regionalized groups.

The opportunity for US youth has also been to be involved in the US youth delegation to support the US to make strong climate legislation to be passed through the Senate. Underneath the US delegation are many non-governmental organizations that are all collaborating through policy work as well as planning interventions (think of them as registered visual displays/actions -like what the news is covering) and scheduling meetings with top negotiators as they arrive in Copenhagen.

Our WSF delegation has been involved in many of these arenas, and we've been working almost round the clock while bringing a Midwest perspective to the table. The decisions made at COP15 will directly affect ALL countries, including the US, so it's important to show the world that youth are connecting and collaborating, not only through the US but as a global unit, to promote a strong, just, and equitable treaty that will reach a binding agreement. Just remember that for each photo that depicts an action, there are many photos that could have been taken depicting the many youth huddled in circles around the Bella Center for regional and international meetings occurring throughout the day, briefings with heads of state where youth pack the rooms to capacity, and youth sifting through stacks of policy papers to understand, interpret and write amendments to legislation. We're living on coffee and adrenaline inside this Bella Center bubble, but the real force driving us is not the energy we have through the visual actions but the underlying hope we collectively share for the future we wish to have and will create.

Our very own Sarah Mullkoff speaks before an audience at the Bella Center as part of a Midwest panel with Rep. Kate Knuth (D-MN). Will Steger Foundation, © 2009 Jamie Horter