Submitted by Kimia Ghomeshi

Negotiations have come to a halt during the last few days at Copenhagen.

For the thousands of observers here including NGOs and youth, I've seen a wave of emotions from complete hopelessness to a reinvigorated resistance towards industrialized countries that continue to be blockers.

The conference halls are filled with an air of confusion, anticipation and desensitization until a spontaneous action led by impacted communities would remind everyone what we are fighting for in Copenhagen: survival.

With the Canadian Youth Delegation, I'm seeing this same spectrum of reactions to the painfully slow movement of the negotiations — some of us can barely hold back our tears as we watch small island states, African countries, indigenous peoples and others losing their homes to the climate crisis.

These countries condemn industrialized countries like Canada that continue to threaten their survival for a problem that industrialized countries have caused. Some of us feel deeply inspired by the uprising of these impacted communities and want to join this resistance in an act of solidarity.

For others, hopelessness has transformed to complete and utter fearlessness as they realize that by sitting back they are condoning the violation of human rights that come with our country's inaction on climate change.

Taryn Mohr-Mackenzie, an 18 year-old Canadian youth delegate felt she had no resort but to call out the Canadian negotiators for lacking ambition and political will in the face of this crisis.

With this rollercoaster of emotions bubbling in our delegation, we were lucky to meet with Sheila Watt-Cloutier, a Canadian Inuit Activist, who left us with the following powerful words.

"We cannot let ourselves feel victimized but must believe that change will come. And believe that we are here for a reason. We must believe that over time, humanity will make the right decisions that place human rights before all else," she says.

Her words couldn't have come at a better time for our group as we had to decide between giving up and rising up for climate justice at the COP.

The choice for me is simple.