COA student to attend U.N. talk Meeting to address climate change

BAR HARBOR – Juan Pablo Hoffmaister is a world traveler with a problem.

Though the College of the Atlantic junior’s passport will be packed with stamps after his upcoming trips to Montreal, Guatemala, Malaysia and Brazil, he anticipates being so busy working as a United Nations youth ambassador that he won’t be able to take in the sights of the far-flung, exotic locales.

“You have all these stamps in your passport but you don’t get to see the beauty of the countries, for the most part,” he said wryly. “I’m willing to sacrifice not going sightseeing when I’m in a country. … What matters to me the most is that youth have a say in the decision-making process on all these levels.”

Hoffmaister, 21, is a Costa Rican native who has immersed himself deeply in environmental, sustainability and public health issues since coming to Maine.

He will be able to put his passions to good use this weekend, when he journeys to Canada to be one of 100 U.S. youth observers at the U.N.’s global conference on climate change, the largest since the Kyoto, Japan, conference in 1997 when the first international protocol on climate change was adopted.

The United States will participate, along with all other U.N. member states, although the Kyoto Protocol has not been adopted here.

“It’s pretty much an opportunity for countries to figure out where they want to go after Kyoto expires in 2012,” he said. “It’s an opportunity for people in North America to start thinking in a more foresighted manner … to realize that it’s time to act, now, and that we need to make responsible choices in how we consume resources over the next few decades to ensure they’ll be there for future generations.”

Hoffmaister, who has focused his COA studies on human studies with an emphasis on public health, is a good example of the adage “Think globally, act locally.”

He is the Maine regional coordinator of the environmental group Sustainus, and helped start a letter-writing campaign to fight against the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

As an activist, Hoffmaister went to Bangalore, India, in October to participate in a U.N. meeting of international youth. While there, the soft-spoken student was elected one of two North American representatives to the U.N. Environmental Programme. It’s a busy, two-year appointment, but Hoffmaister appears to be up to the task and looking forward to the upcoming climate change conference.

“This is an opportunity for us to create a U.N. that is not only powerful but also represents the views of the people,” he said. “I think it will be very exciting. There’s going to be a lot of people engaged. Having 100 youth there will make a big difference.”