World Leadership Conference 2009 Post Event Report

Our Youth. Our Future.

environmental challenge organisation (singapore) known as ECO Singapore

ECOSPHERE, 87 Beach Road, Chye Sing Building, #06-01 Singapore 189695 http://www.eco-singapore.org I Tel: (65) 6333 5543 I Fax: (65) 6333 5537

Registered Address: 10 Anson Road, International Plaza, #15-14 Singapore 079903

Society Reg. No: ROS326/2002 Charity Reg. No: 1739

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1. Introduction to the inaugural World Leadership Conference

John F. Kennedy once said Leadership and learning are indispensible to each other. Leadership is fundamental in a social setting, indispensable regardless of whether one is a world leader, or an average human being. We recognize this, and wish to celebrate this fact on two levels, through an in-depth analysis of the notion of a leader, and an exchange between leaders past and present.

Through the world leadership conference, we hope to encourage participants to re-examine their existing notions of leadership, sharing these ideas with others, while at the same time addressing the issues of the environment and the economy, all important ingredients for moulding our future leaders of tomorrow.

As such, the guiding theme for this year’s conference is Environment and Economics. The drive for economic growth has heralded a host of malicious environmental problems. Protecting the very earth upon which we exist is unequivocally an important end to pursue. Yet, we cannot proceed without acknowledging the desire of communities to pursue wealth and a higher standard of living. It is thus clear that fundamentally, we have to understand that these two ends are intertwined, and that we stand only to benefit, should we reconcile the differences between them.

To this end, The World Leadership Conference (WLC) this year is an intensive 5-day forum with a mission to connect environmentally aware youths of excellent academic performance from around the world, and develop a future generation of leaders with a heart for the environment.

The WLC challenges youths to come up with refreshing solutions to tackle age-old environmental economic problems faced by world leaders. Throughout the course of the conference, participants will get to learn from and engage in intellectual discourse with a multitude of leaders and experts in varying fields related to environmental economics. The conference provides a platform for participants from across the globe to actively engage in open-minded, cross-cultural exchange of ideas with their peers; allowing them to work together to foster effective long-term solutions to existing environmental and economic issues.

World Leadership Conference Environment and Economics: Towards A Low Carbon Economy Post Event Report






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2. Objective of the event

• To provide a platform to nurture informed leaders and decision makers • To encourage future leaders to try reconciling the differences between

environmental conservation and economic progress in their future decision making.

• To enable our young audience to benefit from first hand information and insights coming from world leaders in both economic and environmental arenas

3. Structure of the organizing committee






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4. Conference Programme

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5. Execution of the conference

5.1 Opening Ceremony.

We were honoured to have His Excellency Mr. Paul Madden, British High Commissioner to grace our event as the guest of honour.

The ceremony began with an address by the organizing chairperson Mr. Zhang Yi Tao who briefly outlined the program flow of the 5 days. Mr. Wilson Ang, Founder/President of Environment Challenge Organisation (Singapore) then spoke next regarding the changing environment and how he feels that youth can tackle this emerging problem. His Excellency Mr. Paul Madden then addressed the conference on the importance of youth action to the current situation and delineated some of the policies that Britain was implementing to counteract the encroaching environmental issues. The speeches was followed by the launch of the youth statement, which is set to travel to various other conferences in countries such as Nepal, Japan, China, Korea etc and gather more youth voices, before ending up in Copenhagen for the decisive COP 15. To wrap up the entire opening, Mr. Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director, addressed the conference via a pre-recorded video and conveyed his hope that the conference can bring to fruition valuable insights by the youths which can be used to guide the world towards a better future in the upcoming COP15.

GOH HE Paul Madden speaking at Opening Mr. Martin Tan speaking at leadership plenary

5.2 Plenary Sessions

Throughout the 5 day conference, there were a total of 4 plenary sessions each focusing on different aspects.






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Day 1 Plenary: Leadership

Being the World Leadership Conference, the day 1 plenary was naturally on the nuances of leadership. The speaker for day 1 was Mr. Martin Tan, the executive director of Halogen Foundation which was founded to develop leadership in young people. Through inspiring activities, Mr. Martin Tan taught the audience to look at questions in a different light and thus come up with solutions that are out of the box, tying in with the objectives of our conference.

Day 2 Plenary: Environment

Mr. Wilson Ang, Founder/President of the Environment Challenge Organisation (Singapore) was the speaker for the day 2 plenary. Through the sharing of vivid video clips, Mr. Ang showed the audience exactly why our world, a true gem in the universe, was worth protecting. Using anecdotes gathered from his years in ECO Singapore, Mr. Ang showed the audience how youth have gone on to make a difference in the environment, and the limitless possibilities of things youth can achieve.

Day 3 Plenary: Economics

The speaker for day 3 was Mr. John Pearson, Head of Climate Change Network Southeast Asia, British High Commission. In the plenary session, Mr. Pearson delivered a speech about the regional review conducted by Asian Development Bank: “The Economics of Climate Change in Southeast Asia.” Southeast Asia was a special area because it was twice more vulnerable to climate change impacts than the rest of the world. Adaptation was the priority in these countries while mitigation needed to be restricted to low-cost solutions. Mr. Pearson emphasized the use of oil and coal should be replaced by natural gas. In addition, improvement of energy efficiency should be recognized as a win-win option for this region.

Special Session: Economics

The speaker for the special session was Mr. John Perkins, the highly successful author of the book "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" which landed on 20 bestseller lists such as the New York Times Bestseller List within a few weeks of its release. In a bid to reduce carbon footprint, Mr. John Perkins conducted his talk together with Q&A via videoconferencing, which was experimented for the first time during the conference. The outcome was highly successful as both the audience and Mr. Perkins enjoyed this innovative form of communication. Mr Perkins, with his vast knowledge in economics, identified various key economic concerns that prevent the world from going green, and challenged the audience to take on these problems.






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Web conference with Mr. John Perkins Mr. Wilson Ang speaking at plenary

Day 4 Plenary: Environment and Economics:

The speaker for day 4 was Professor Winston Koh, Head of Research Administration at the Singapore Management University. Professor Koh graduated from Cambridge with double masters and had studied at Princeton for his Ph.D. before going on to become Vice-President at JP Morgan. As his area of speciality was game theory in economics, Professor Koh used several simple game theory frameworks to explain logically the lack of cooperation between nations with regards to environmental issues, which provided a synthesis between the topics of environment and economics

5.3 Parallel sessions 5.3.1 Alternative Energy Sources

Our group, given the framework of ‘Alternative Energy Sources’, aimed to set down a position paper, revolving around the said title, so as to formulate and implement new policies as well as directions for future governments to take a similar path and turn towards the pathway of alternative energy.

Deepak Waikar’s speech, named: ‘Alternative sources of energy and energy efficiency: a scope for hope or piped dream?’ managed to captivate and enthral the audience with his visions for the future. He managed to draw up a very real, yet imaginative future of the alternative energy scene, quoting a number of statistics from very varied sources from his home country, India, as well as Singapore. Many numerous case studies were also raised by him, which provided a new insight into how a big difference could be achieved if alternative sources of energy were being used.

Christophe Inglin’s talk, on alternative sources of energy (focusing on Singapore’s solar power), gave many new insights into the concept of solar power in Singapore. He brought up a few interesting ideas towards the exploration of solar power in Singapore, giving trends as well as numerous numerical data.

Our group’s position paper statement was: “We, the youths of our generation, seek to reduce global carbon emissions by substituting part of our total energy consumption with Alternative Energy Sources (AES). We wish to secure our future with the implementation of further policies by the government and widespread and aggressive advocacy of the use






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of AES, so as to ensure that dependency on current energy sources will be lowered. We hope to achieve our main goal of increasing the global usage of alternative energy sources up to 35% by 2050 and to reduce the global carbon emission by 45-55% by 2050.”

Attentive audience Group Time

5.3.2 Education and Environmental Awareness

Education and Environmental Awareness (EEA) parallel group’s main objective is to highlight environmental degradation as a pertinent issue that must be dealt with and raise the awareness of this through the means of education. The group combined all their thoughts and ideas together that are pertaining to this issue and the end product is in the form of a position paper.

Before the group started on the position paper, they attended talks by speakers who are professionals in this field of study. The first of three talks was regarding the degrading state of the environment today and what leaders of the next generation can do to salvage this situation and do our part in saving the environment. It focuses on how the next generation of leaders are the ones in charge and it is up to them to be the ones spearheading efforts to make the world a better place to live in. This truly makes us reflect on our actions and what we have done for the environment and Mother Earth. Are we able to sustain our efforts on what we set out to achieve for the environment or is it just going to die off after a short while? We, the next generation, are the ones in charge now – of saving the environment and saving our Earth.

The second talk was about the (personal) ethics of climate change and sustainability. In a nutshell, the problem with climate challenge is that it is simultaneously technological and ethical, yet is almost always treated only through the lens of technology and economics. The talk focuses on the personal or individual things that we can each do to fight climate change and promote sustainability. It details how individual patterns energy usage, eating, purchasing homes, consuming, and associated pollution are unsustainable. Special emphasis is placed on individual responsibility and what individuals can do by themselves to make a difference, which is the key learning point from this talk.






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The third and last talk focuses on the idea that the greatest challenges we face today and in the foreseeable future are environmental ones. Problems such as pollution, environmental degradation, resource depletion and climate change threaten not just our environmental sustainability but our social stability and economic growth. Thus, the world needs more environmental entrepreneurs; people who see these challenges as opportunities to make the world a better and more sustainable place to live in. Therefore, the lessons that were taken away from this talk are the reasons for the need for environmental entrepreneurs, what and who they are and how we can produce more of them in the near future so as to reduce the extent of environmental degradation.

Applying what they have learnt from the talks, the participants came together and produced a solid piece of position paper. They studied the extent of environmental degradation and identified the problems that resulted in it. Details regarding existing efforts were provided and the gaps that they failed to cover. This led them to provide solutions, at the same time acknowledging that our world do need more environmental entrepreneurs as well as maintain sustainability. Most importantly, they recognised the fact that it is up to our generation to act. Ultimately, it’s our choice (this evolved to be the group’s slogan) whether we want to save the environment or not.

Prof. Buschmann in parallel session Group facilitator Keng Chee in Group Time

5.3.3 Environmental Law

The main objective of Environmental Law parallel session is to find out the role Environmental Law has to play currently in trying to get the various countries to put in a global effort to achieve environmental friendliness while not compromising the development of the countries to achieve what they require in what we know as sustainable development. The crux of the group’s objective is to maintain what we think is currently






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working well in environmental law and to try to achieve changes in the inherent loopholes within the current system.

The end product of all of this is to seek to achieve a final aim that would allow all countries to reach a common binding agreement to work towards sustainable development, one which would allow countries to be held accountable for their actions.

Professor Simon Chesterman talked about the current efforts of the international committee in trying to achieve sustainable development and how these efforts were lacking. One particular limitation that was given by Professor Chesterman would be the inability of the countries in bringing other countries to legal action unless given the permission to do so by a different country.

Prof Gunawansa on the other hand focused about the problem of sustainable development and what it meant to different people living in different conditions. He brought in a new perspective to us that the people living in the poorer regions would not be interested in upkeeping the environment simply because they already have problems making ends meet and hence while drafting our paper, we should also be thinking about how to achieve environmental friendliness without compromising their economic growth.

Lastly, Professor Lye Lin Heng gave a more microscopic view of environmental law. By including various examples of environmental law taking effect within Singapore, she managed to point out various points on what can be done to achieve environmental awareness through law itself. She also gave the example of Chek Jawa to show what can be done to help achieve environmental awareness.

As a short summary, the Environmental Law Group sought to amend current international laws that would help alleviate environmental problems plaguing the world whilst ensuring the continued economic growth of all countries. We want the genuine dedication of all nations, both developed and developing countries, to a collaborative multilateral approach to ensure the promotion of environmental protection, accountability and religious implementation of appropriate environmental laws, proper appropriation of funds and the advancement of a sustainable environment for the present and future world population – Inter-generational responsibilities of every nation.

5.3.4 Green Technology

Green technology will be one of the many main ways that the world will be utilising to solve these serious and imminent problems. It is therefore of no surprise that many of the youth leaders decided to take up this issue for the 5 day conference in Singapore.

Many in the group felt that green technology is an oxymoron. Technology, which has been the main cause of the increasing carbon emissions in the world, is and will be the biggest obstacle as the world strives to become a more sustainable one. However, many in the group also felt that although it might appear that technology is the main impetus behind our current environmental crisis, green technology, which incorporates eco-






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friendly principles into its development, presents us with a genuine alternative to its current mainstream counterpart.

With this main concept in mind, the group embarked on an unforgettable 5 day journey. After some quick icebreakers, the group swiftly got to work. This started off with a few presentations by various influential speakers in the field of green technology.

Professor Maswood from Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, gave a talk on the various clean energy sources of the future. He spoke specifically about the situation in Singapore, as well as how he foresaw wind energy to be the alternative energy source that has the most potential of replacing fossil fuels in the future. After the talk, a discussion on nuclear energy started and it appeared that many in the group were interested to know why nuclear energy, which is the cleanest form of energy and is able to produce an abundant amount of energy, has not been considered as a viable option. A brief debate on the safety issues followed.

Mr. Toh, an executive development officer at the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) of Singapore, then came to talk about the various green plans in green buildings in Singapore. His talk focused on Singapore’s green mark and how it is currently the only way to judge green buildings in the tropical area currently. After describing the Green Mark, a discussion of how Singapore, being a small country, could bring about change in a global climate problem. There was consensus, however, that Singapore could lead the way in building green buildings and pass on valuable knowledge and experience to countries in the tropics.

After these talks, the group embarked on a position paper. They focused on three main areas, namely Green Energy, Green Buildings, as well as Green consumer products. This was because the group felt that these 3 areas have been causing a huge amount of carbon emissions in recent years (in 2000, 9.9% of world’s greenhouse gases emission can be attributed to automobiles, 13.8% to industrial processes and 15.3% to buildings). Also, the team felt that the technology to lessen carbon emissions in these industries are already present and the problem now lay in the implementation of these new green technologies.

Mr. Eugene Tay speaking about Matrix Parallel group with their flag






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5.3.5 Resource Depletion The Resource Depletion group had covered many other topics for discussion in the forum, as the depletion of natural resources would bring about a demand for change in energy sources. Hence, the group has touched on ways to slow down resource depletion through using alternative energy sources to substitute un-renewable resources. The group has thought about Green Technology in the form of fuel efficiency and also touched on environmental law through the evaluation and discussion of the Kyoto Protocol. As seen from the nature of the topic: Resource Depletion as stated above, the approach towards working against depleting resources has been very all-encompassing and covers many aspects.

Our first speaker, Mr. Wilson Ang, set the direction in which the group’s position paper should head towards. Through the various video screenings such as “The Story of Stuff”, the group was exposed to a great variety of information and thereby many exploration areas were opened. This particular parallel session was very useful as the group managed to get a lot of their doubts and uncertainties over the paper cleared and set straight under Mr. Ang’s guidance and supervision. They were able to set concrete goals and a fixed timeline for the implementation of, for example, alternative energy inputs to replace a certain percentage of total energy.

Our second speaker, Mr. Eugene Tay, gave many useful statistics, data and information that would serve useful for the substantiation of the group’s report. Mr. Tay also shared with the group his wealth of experience in the environmental scene, ranging from awareness and governmental policies. It was through both Mr. Ang and Mr. Tay that the groups got the point that for a government to help the people effectively, the people have to help the government in being very clear of what they want .In which case, their position paper was set to define a firm stand towards fighting resource depletion and the demanding of certain efforts in place to meet the timeline or deadline that they have set for the different aspects of the entire problem-solving journey.

Their position paper was put together after much hard work from the group members and adopted a hamburger approach, where the middle portion which was divided into the developed and developing countries was supported and targeted by the top patty (Governmental and International Organisations) and the bottom patty (Community based organisations and Non-Governmental Organisations). The approach ensures that the effort to mitigate the loss of resources is that of the entire society’s not just restricted to governmental policies. Both developed and developing countries are also targeted.

The group managed to tie in the idea of environmental leadership and discussed about how political leaders have a part in modelling the way for the citizens to follow, and cited both good and bad role models. This is highly important as leadership is one very strong way to move the masses and channel their attention towards the cause to save the earth. The group ultimately tied in environment and economics as well as leadership. All in all, I daresay it was a highly enriching experience for participants and facilitators alike.






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Figure 1Ms. Mekani speaking on EEA Green Technology parallel group

5.3.6 Waste Management The problem of mounting waste is one that humanity has to come to terms with. As our population and spending habits grow uncontrollably, our waste has increased exponentially so much so that it is now a pressing problem in cities such as Manila which is known for its humongous waste dumps such as the smoky mountains. It is thus with the view of reducing waste that the waste management group had set out to seek solutions. To give the group a greater understanding about how waste can be more effectively treated, Mr Teo Hock Kheng from the waste management department of the National Environment Agency spoke about how Singapore has dealt with its waste problems effectively despite the high amount of waste per capita and the lack of space to dispose of the waste. Mr. Teo highlighted several key strategies fundamental to keeping the waste in Singapore under control, such as incineration which reduces waste volume by 90% volume and having an offshore landfill. To further complement the lecture, the group was also brought to Pulau Semakau to see for themselves how the waste is processed and compacted, and even put to good use as after Pulau Semakau is totally reclaimed from the sea, it will be able to be used to aid Singapore’s development. The visit also cleared the common misconception that landfills are necessarily pungent infested areas, for the entire visit was devoid of vermin. Inspired by how waste management can be improved, the group then went on to promote the enforcement of legislation and frameworks that advocate responsible waste management, in order to forge towards a low carbon economy through sustainable development. Proposed frameworks include the 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) in solid waste management, and an additional R, Refuse, in turning down the usage of harmful disposable products. 5.4 Closing ceremony

The closing ceremony was marked by a presentation of the position papers by the various groups. By having each group present their topic to the rest of the conference, we hoped that everyone could walk away with an understanding of not only their own topic but the other topics as well, for environmentalism is not an isolated affair. We also hoped this will show them that youths can come up with useful solutions and allow suggestions for improvement to be made to the presenting groups.






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The closing officially ended with a closing address by Mr. Lu Yang, the organizing chairperson, who expressed a fervent desire for the participants to hold what they have learnt the past few days close to their heart, and never to let the spirit of environmentalism die within them. Finally everyone changed into their ethnic costumes and took a picture with the 12 meter long banner that bore the wishes and dreams of the participants, as a show that youths from so many different countries are willing to put aside their differences and work towards this common sacred goal. The same banner will be put up for exhibition at Copenhagen, Denmark.

12m long banner Delegates in their ethnic costumes

6. Conclusion On the whole, the inaugural World Leadership Conference was a resounding success. While we initially expected only a 15 page document at the end of the 5 days, the enthusiasm of the groups was astounding and they came up with close to 150 pages of position paper at the end of the 5 days and we had to spend weeks shrinking them down to a length that is more readable. The deliverable in the form of the paper had exceeded our expectations by 10 times! Furthermore, the conference had also enabled participants to build up networks which enabled them to share more, as many participants continued to email and share environmental issues with their group mates even after they had returned to their countries. The fostering of this kind of networks will help them to utilize the knowledge of others to better understand the environment and hopefully galvanize them into action. We were also fortunate to have with us a gamut of prestigious partners, quite an achievement for an inaugural conference. The support of international organizations such as the UNEP and World Bank have added value to our conference and also enabled us to reach out to a greater circle of youths.






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7. Key Event Highlights Key Indicators Duration 15th June, 2009 to 19th June, 2009 Outreach 348 delegates

Including 289 international delegates (from more than 20 countries) and 59 Singapore delegates

Sponsors Singapore Tourism Board National Environment Agency Main Organizer Environmental Challenge Organisation

(Singapore) Supporting Partners International organizations United Nations Environmental Program World Bank TakingITGlobal Asian Development Bank 2 Degrees C Governmental organizations Building and Construction Authority Public Utilities Board National Library Board National Environment Agency British High Commission British Council Non-governmental organizations Leadership Development Centre Singapore Management University SMU Verts Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and

Philanthropy, National University of Singapore

China Youth Climate Action Network United Nations Youth Association of

Singapore 8. Good job done and areas of improvement

Good job done

• Well coordinated receiving of over 150 participants from the airport • Great rapport built up with conference participants • Good atmosphere created that was conducive for discussion. Many discussion groups

came up with over 30 pages within 5 days • Prestigious speakers that help to further the depth of topics discussed






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• Committee members were enthusiastic throughout the 5 days • Securing so many partners for the paper route • A good mix of sightseeing, educational activities, site tours and

working time • Satisfying accommodation

Areas of improvements

• Should not have indiscriminately mass sent sponsorship requests, especially to contacts in the same department

• Should have settled on venue earlier. The confusion in venue resulted in the loss of valuable speakers

• Should have exercised more discretion in accepting participants, especially those who did not provide full details in sign up form

• Should have been much more timely with regards to the submission of position paper, for delays inadvertently resulted in a loss of prestige for ECO in front of international parties

• Regular follow ups should have been done for various speakers and with leadership development council. As partners, they should have been regularly updated instead of merely being called upon where needed, because that diminishes the sense of belonging our partners get and distance them from us.

• Guest of Honor invitations could have been sent out earlier, but the reason it could not be was that venue was not confirmed

• Closing dinner could have been more grand, as many were disappointed by the closing dinner's food

• Sponsorship package amounts should have been scaled back in view of economic recession

• Recruitment of Committee: Throughout the project, there have been committee members who have slacked off and refused to work. Some have been expelled, while others unpunished. There needs to be a clear guideline from the start regarding the timely submission of work

• Opening ceremony could have been better largely due to the irresponsibility of the emcee who had skipped a dry run and was extremely late for the actual day itself too.

9. Recommendation for future project

• Be more conservative in terms of sponsorship package

• Confirm Venue and Guest of Honor first, as a concrete venue and Guest of Honor

can help to secure more funding. Perhaps SMU could be secured as a venue first,

then if finances allow we could shift out to a more high class location for the

opening and closing ceremonies.

• Be more selective about sending out sponsorship letters

• Secure Hotel81 for the next conference too, for the Hotel rooms seem to be the

cheapest around and the participants are quite happy with the standard of

accommodation at Hotel81

• A full dry run should be carried out for the opening ceremony

• Send out invitations to participants as soon as the venue is confirmed so as to

attract the maximum number of participants

World Leadership Conference 2009 Post Event Report

Documents

Transcript of World Leadership Conference 2009 Post Event Report