It is hard to feel optimistic about solving the climate crisis these days. The media’s take on the Copenhagen international climate treaty negotiations is that they were an absolute failure. Their reporting on the federal climate bill is similarly macabre. Acc stuck somewhere between incompetence, cowardice, and straight-out corruption.
On the other hand, think tanks of ideologies continue releasing highly ideological analyses that are hard to believe. Nonetheless, somewhere between the mainstream media’s alarmism and the think tanks’ platitudes there is a grain of truth about the extremely challenging times ahead of us.
New video on actions in Copenhagen in support of the island states and the least developed countries. These courageous negotiators are standing up to the weak commitments proposed by the ‘global north’ that are far from what required by the science.
Under current commitments, warming of more than 2 degrees celsius is certain. Such warming would drawn small island states and seriously weaken the already small agricultural output of in sub-Saharan Africa.
The WonkRoom posted the video of the Tuvalu negotiator’s plea for developed nations to reduce their emissions fast enough to guarantee the survival of his people. I highly recommend it!
(sorry for my bad performance in this first video, I’m still getting used to being in front of a camera!)
I got to Copenhagen on December 4th and will be hanging out here at the United Nations international climate negotiation until the 20th. In this time, delegates from all nations in the world and many world leaders will swing by to either try to move the process forward or put roadblocks to climate action.
Official delegates aren’t the only ones here. Over 1,000 young people and tens of thousands of other NGO, business and industry representatives are here to try to get their voices heard amidst the chaotic negotiation process.
This first week, negotiators from different countries will begin drafting an outline of the proposal that should emerge. As the end of the conference draws nearer and the agreed upon aspects of the proposal are finalized, Environmental Ministers (i.e. secretaries) from each country will join their negotiators for the tougher part of the talks. Finally, on the last day where only few details need to be finalized Prime Ministers and Presidents will join in on the fight, ending the negotiations in a high-level high-stakes battle over words. The whole process happens over consensus and thus every nation must agree in order to come up with a viable proposal or treaty.
Unfortunately due to the delays brought about by the Bush Administration in the past eight years we are no-where close to finalizing a treaty, but hopes are high for a meaningful structure to be finalized over the next year and some strong commitments decided upon by some of the biggest polluters.
In my time here, I will be working with partner organizations in planning media saavvy actions, document them on this blog, and help U.S. young people take action through the Energy Action Coalition’s Rapid Response Network. If you wish to help us spread the word in your community about the U.S.’s behavior during the negotiations, sign up here to join my team of Rapid Responders.
If you have thoughts and ideas about what I should be covering while here, please leave me a note in the comments!
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