Sitting here in my apartment in Calgary feels very far away from the crazed alternate reality that was the United Nations Conference on Climate Change. It's impossible to sum up all of the incredible people, experiences, knowledge, stories, sights and sounds I encountered.

It was an incredible experience, and I will hold this event in my mind and my heart as a definitive moment; a catalyst in my understanding of climate change and how it will affect the world we inhabit--how it is already profoundly affecting too many mothers, fathers, sons and daughters--those on the frontlines of melting ice and rising seas, and other vunerable communities around the world.

But at the Conference in Montreal, the countries of the world took a stand on climate change, at least diplomatically. On an international level, we won in Montreal--all of us. Here's what it means:

• First, countries who ratified the Kyoto Protocol gave their approval to the Marrakech Accords, the "rule book" of the Protocol. This will allow operationalisation of Kyoto, guaraunteeing that countries will be held accountable for their commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
  
• Second, those same countries also agreed to being a process to discuss future commitments for countries who have accepted emissions reduction targets up to 2012. This sends a clear message that the Kyoto Protocol will endure and continue to enforce greehouse gas reductions on an international level.
  
• Finally, youth from around the world united in one of the strongest statements of concern for global climate change to date. At Montreal, a process of youth intervention--over five years in the making--reached maturity, and world leaders could not look away.

At the conference, we youth also agreed to begin a process to discuss future commitments. And we commited to persist in our education, our passion, our low-carbon lifestyles, and in our activism and outcry against global climate change. And for me, that is the real victory coming out of Montreal.

We, the youth of today and leaders of tomorrow, face an unprecedented challenge as a result of global climate change and share in the responsibility of addressing it.

- opening address of Our Climate, Our Challenge, Our Future, the International Youth Declaration from Montreal