From the Amazonian protest outside to lobbyists inside, they’re rising up at COP 30. And those that are rising up are calling for the BAM- the Belem Action Mechanism- a way to make sure Just Transitions are implemented in decisions made about our futures.

The future can feel hard when you’re already up against so much, have lost friends and family in the fight and the odds are stacked against you.

There is still no funding in the loss and damage fund and everything is still up in the air for the BAM with the UK more intent on protecting the treasury and worrying what it might cost than showing concern for the protestors outside the meeting rooms. The Just Transition Rising protest could be heard clearly even through the headsets while rich countries sat protecting their riches and the Arab group objected to transitioning away from fossil fuels (again).

Katie White, our climate minister, paid lip service in a meeting about women in energy- how wonderful to have women now working in renewables. It was pointed out though that the majority of women in energy are in poorly paid admin roles.

On the way out I collared one of the UK “party overflow” people to ask why they hadn’t replied to my email to ask to meet about their position on the BAM. He backed away and asked me to forward the email again. I called out “we are important you know- we represent nearly six million workers!”.

The ITUC, though, represents nearly 200 million workers and they presented the case for Just Transition in a meeting later today, proudly wearing their various affiliate flags!

How wonderful it was, then, to hear some good news stories today! And these came from the side event meeting run by Earth Child. Eloquent, well educated young people told their stories from around the world. But these were not stories of disaster; they were stories of success, where young people had taken it upon themselves to get things sorted because the adults won’t.

This young woman saved her forest school from developers by mobilising the youth of her area.

A Chinese university student had mobilised other students to get the flooding stopped and outside areas improved at his university. Ebube, 16, from Nigeria, talked of people carrying students, and putting them in boats, through floods to their exams- but these experiences have turned him into a climate activist and he’s now at COP. A 15 year old from Argentina began getting pupils to clean up rivers because he was so moved to see how clean the rivers were when he was on holiday in the mountains.

All this action was collective, including in China, where the student was clearly aware he could not simply stage a sit-in or a protest. But people became powerful by rising up, in a range of ways, and it got results.

And while I sat in the Just Transition Work Programme contact group meeting afterwards, in its massive space, with most of the world round the table, disagreeing in their factions (and Russia out on a limb, so negative that he was almost told off by the chair) and focussing on small details with offensive consequences (Paraguay wanted the word gender replaced with “men and women”), I was wondering to myself whether we should stop flying all these bureaucrats around the world and instead conduct the whole thing by zoom- if nothing else, after this many hours on screen they’d probably agree to anything!! But then I concluded that the answer is to actually oust all the adults and replace them with children and young people in the negotiating rooms. So that’s sorted. Let’s include some that are already being taught how to look after the forest.

Someone said in an earlier meeting: if you invest in children, you invest in the world.

And to top it all off, Tracey and I became kids ourselves again and ate chips and Brazilian pastries at the funfair next door to our apartment!