As University students, faculty and administration work to decrease carbon emissions on campus, Eli Allen ’09 is taking this cause across the warming seas to Poland. Allen will be serving as a youth delegate to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, to be held this December in Poland, as one of 20 American students sponsored by SustainUs, an environmental non-profit. At the conference, the SustainUs youth delegates will work to direct the attention of both the delegates to the policy plans necessary for combating global warming and the media towards the scientific and social issues at stake.

“We are looking to promote a bold, binding and just international climate treaty with science-based targets and strong leadership from the U.S.,” Allen said.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 14th Conference of Parties, will begin on Dec. 23 in Poznan, Poland. Delegates will discuss changes to the non-binding Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012 and aims to both stabilize atmospheric green house gas concentrations and reduce the anthropogenic affect on global climate systems. They hope that the outcome of the negotiations will create a framework for an enhanced protocol that can then be signed at the conference next year in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Allen, whose prior work has centered mainly on environmental health and justice, looks forward to being part of these crucial negotiations.

“This is my first experience looking into policy in general and on climate change,” Allen said. “I look forward to meeting with members of the State Department to push for renewed U.S. leadership, as well as members of Congress and leaders such as Al Gore, who will be at the conference demonstrating that there is strong public support in the U.S. for a climate treaty.”

At the conference, the SustainUs delegates plan to meet with delegates from the State Department and discuss the issues they see as crucial to the outcome of the negotiations, such as adaptation, deforestation, land and land use change, finance, mitigation and sustainability, and technology transfer. In preparation, the SustainUs youth delegates have charted policy papers on these issues, discussing in depth the severity of the current situation and the necessary steps that must be taken. An observer at the conference, Allen will be able to sit in on the negotiations and to watch the delegates at work.

Allen explained that another role of the youth delegates is to focus the attention of the international media on the actions of the delegates.

“The big part is to get the media’s attention,” Allen said. “We are going to direct the international media at what is going right and wrong at the conference.”

Youth delegates also raise awareness of conference successes and failures in more pointed and less formal ways. Allen described the Fossil of the Day Award, an annual tradition of the youth delegates at the conferences, in which they present the award to the top three countries that have obstructed negotiations that day. Last year, youth delegates also taught emergency swimming lessons to delegates as they entered the negotiating rooms to demonstrate the impact of rising seal level due to anthropogenic global climate change.

Along with promoting their own personal policies, the SustainUs delegates will also work with thousands of other young delegates from across the globe to promote the power of youth action. The youth delegates will participate in a Conference of the Youth (COY) in the weekend prior to the negotiations and discuss how best to use the magnitude of their collective voices.

In addition to attending the conference himself, Allen hopes to help bring President-elect Barack Obama to the negotiations.

“This would really show that he is representing the best of the United States on this issue,” Allen said. “The U.S. leadership has really been a big problem for the past eight years… It was nice to see support [in this past election] from both candidates on adaptation and the need to mitigate.”

A College of Social Studies major from Minnesota, Allen first became interested in environmental health and justice after attending a meeting in Southern Minneapolis that addressed the issue of arsenic soil contamination in a local, low-income community. The arsenic contributed to increased levels of learning disabilities and sickness, among other problems, in residents who gardened within the soil.

“There was a real issue of justice that struck a chord with me that day [at the meeting] four years ago,” Allen said. “From there, I started to look for different ways I could work on issues of environmental health and prevent others from being harmed.”

He has gained crucial insight into the complexities of environmental issues through his work beyond the University. He interned at both the Environmental PA, where he worked on environmental health and educational outreach; and at Preventing Harm Minnesota, a non-profit that promotes precautionary government regulation for protecting children from toxins in the environment. He applied to be a youth delegate for SustatinUs— a nonpartisan non-profit founded in 2001 that advocates for sustainable development and the empowerment of young people in the United States—after an e-mail from a friend this past summer encouraged him to do so.

“From the moment I saw it, I knew it was something I wanted to do,” Allen said.

I could work on issues of environmental health and prevent others from being harmed.”

As an active member of Wesleyan’s Environmental Organizers Network (EON), Allen has advocated for implementing green cleaning in campus buildings, which would benefit the health of custodial workers, students and staff. He is also part of the Procurement Sustainability Subcommittee, a mixed student and staff committee that is working to implement a more green procurement policy on campus.

Allen feels optimistic about the steps that the University is taking to decrease their carbon emissions and to address its environmental impact on a larger scale.

“I am happy that Wesleyan is currently drafting an action plan to become climate neutral as a signatory to the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment,” Allen wrote in an e-mail. “I think an ambitious action plan would help build grassroots support for strong national and international climate change policies.”

He also eagerly awaits the results of a University inventory into its greenhouse gas emissions as part of the Presidents Climate Commitment.

“I will be excited to see Wesleyan’s inventory of all its greenhouse gas emissions which was due to complete by Nov. 16,” Allen said. “This will provide a framework for determining how Wesleyan will become climate neutral.”

Looking forward, Allen feels that his past work and education have only strengthened his passion for these causes and prepared him to face the tough issues that lay ahead. He remains very interested in working in environmental policy, either within the government or through non-profit advocacy. For now, however, he’s excited at the prospect of connecting with fellow young environmentalists to help affect change on an international scale.

“It’s hard to get through the language barriers, but we are all trying to influence policy makers,” Allen said. “I look forward to learning from and collaborating with young people from around the world who are active in the global climate movement.”