Delegates!
It’s been a while! We, the UNEP Dais Staff, apologize for our apparent disappearance this past number of weeks. We also bring to you an excuse: final exams. We hope you understand. (I`ve just got calculus on Monday, and then I`m DONE! WOOHOO!)
So, what’s happened since we’ve been ‘gone’? Well, “Madrid” is behind us, and that big bad “Copenhagen” is upon us! I had planned a post showing the developing nature of Canada’s role in this conference (noting a number of really good articles from the Edmonton Journal, the Gateway (the U of A`s student newspaper), and other publications), but, again, finals happened, and that fell by the wayside. So now we find ourselves here, well into December, and with the end of the year fast approaching, I note with excitement that HSMUN 2010 CAN`T BE FAR BEHIND (YAY!). (We`ll get those background papers to you soon. Promise. Just doing some final editing right now…)
In this light, my thoughts have turned a little from the environmental issues you’ll be debating to the technical nitty-gritty stuff of the conference. Now, I know that many of you are seasoned veterans of HSMUN, and have no fear at all of marching off into the battle that is caucus. Others, however, have never participated in a Model UN, and I don't think I'd be entirely wrong to say that a number of you are a little unsure of what to expect. What do you do when you first get to the conference? What kinds of thinks will you find yourself involved in doing? And, very importantly: how on earth does debate run in this crazy MUN thing? Well, empathizing with those of you who do have these questions, you'll be seeing in the next little while an EXCITING (maybe) and INFORMATIVE (hopefully) series of posts that will be designed to walk you through what you need to know to shine at February's conference, with a special focus on rules of procedure. So keep your eyes peeled for that.
While you're waiting... I'd like to direct your attention again to The HSMUN 2010 UNEP Foreign Policy Index. Still in its beginning stages, there are only a small number of articles indexed, but it is still a resource worth checking out to get clear statements of foreign policy (even for some more obscure nation-states).
If you have an article that you'd like to share, or want to draw our attention to anything that ought to be indexed, by all means, feel free to help out! Send us what you've got. In a similar vein, if there's something you'd like to get cleared up, or if you have any ideas for a 'feature' you'd like to see in this blog, we'd love to hear from you! Let us know- you can e-mail us by clicking on our names in that top right-hand corner box.
I'll leave you with just two more items:
1. Canada's role at Copenhagen. I can't help it: I know I've fallen behind and I've pretty much abandoned the idea I mentioned (above) about tracking this, but I still just want to turn your attention to two Journal articles, with kind of contrasting topics:
a) Canada Mocked and Praised At Copenhagen
b) Canada Working Constructively At Copenhagen
2. Research at the University of Alberta. So, I was searching for articles pertaining to this year's topics of debate, and found an interesting article (similar to previous ones posted, but with some new information) I wanted to share (see a) below). I got to thinking about why I'd never heard of this "School of Energy and the Environment" before, but then though, why would I have? A university setting is a goldmine of information and research, and that's about when I found the list of experts at the U of A (b) below) that's I've given the link for. Not quite sure of key issues? Having troubles with your research? Go ahead and contact these folks! That's what they're there for! And it's all so easy- you can just fire off a quick e-mail...
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