牟元彪

代表国：挪威 联合国环境规划署（UNEP）

    The eye-openers began before the opening ceremony even started. The main assembly hall at the United Nations European headquarters was of gigantic proportions and spaciously lit by fancy lighting fixtures. Taking a seat in the fourth row, I couldn’t help thinking how amazing it was that, I, an ordinary secondary school student, was sitting in a hall where true representatives of almost every country in the world have met countless times to discuss and find solutions to issues of international importance. It was simply breathtaking.

    When all were seated, the ceremony began with a series of speeches made by distinguished guests and organizers. Then the 38 countries which were present were introduced to the assembly. To think that this is but a fraction of the diversity of mankind and only tiny representative of the vast amount of great minds, ideas and opinions that exist on this planet, it really gave me an idea of just how complicated human society is and how difficult it would be for everyone present to reach consensus on a problem.

    After a night’s rest in a luxurious hotel complex over in France, the committee sessions truly begun. Roll call, setting the agenda, engaging in caucus, everything was done as how true UN committee sessions progress. Ideas started flying around the room, and partnerships and alliances formed. Everyone here had done a huge amount of research, and everyone was truly putting in all their effort into solving the problems set for us.

    That night I worked till one o’clock in the morning writing my resolution. The next day was when everything came together. Amazingly, the whole committee reached consensus on the solution to the problem and in the end one single resolution was formed. Nothing is too difficult if you put your heart to it- we had done our best, and we had succeeded.

    The voting the next day was a breeze and our resolution passed with flying colors. But behind our success was an untold story of perseverance and devotion. The reason why we could come up with ideas worthy enough to be handed to the UN Secretary General and stored as an official UN document was that each and every one of us had had months of preparation, and it is through the merging of our ideas that international collaboration was achieved.