Today was the start of the Conference of Parties (COP14) talks on Climate Change in Poznan Poland. The activist and NGO community is buzzing with ideas about how to make the most of these sessions to come out with a strong path toward the increasingly looming deadlines next year in Copenhagen. One of our concerns is that the delegates are trying to lower expectations for this process, telling the press (and each other) that it’s okay not to expect too much from the Poland talks. But across the world, we all know that we can’t wait anymore.
Check out this action that happened this morning in Denmark at the summit site for the climate negotiations next year. The group KlimaX dropped banners outside the Bella Centret illustrating the urgent need for just solutions. Sini Østergaard from KlimaX said “We cannot stand by and watch while the rich countries buy CO2 quotas from the poor countries. We have take action now.”
KlimaX activist Thor went on to say “The clock is ticking and time has run out. It is now we have to face the consequences of our over-consumption in the west.”
Stay tuned for more actions around the world!
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Half the Amazon Rainforest to be Lost by 2030
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(NaturalNews) Due to the effects of global warming and deforestation, more than half of the Amazon rainforest may be destroyed or severely damaged by the year 2030, according to a report released by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
The report, “Amazon’s Vicious Cycles: Drought and Fire,” concludes that 55 percent of the world’s largest rainforest stands to be severely damaged from agriculture, drought, fire, logging and livestock ranching in the next 22 years. Another 4 percent may be damaged by reduced rainfall caused by global warming. This is anticipated to destroy up to 80 percent of wildlife habitat in the region.
read more…
http://hernado-key.blogspot.com
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Joshua,
good post. i need to contact you for a quote for a news story i am writing about Poznan. please email me here danbloom gmail
also can you report or blog on my lawsuit , if this interests u?
danny
Tufts 1971, close to Brandeis, yes…i saw CREAM there in 1969 concert! wow. Ginger Baker on drums…. i was SDS at Tufts
http://northwardho.blogspot.com
Joshua Kahn Russell, a young Brandeis graduate who on
the ground in Poznan this week, told RushPRnews that “the activist and
NGO community is buzzing with ideas about how to make the most of
these sessions to come out with a strong path toward the increasingly
looming deadlines next year in Copenhagen. One of our concerns is that
the delegates are trying to lower expectations for this process,
telling the press (and each other) that it’s okay not to expect too
much from the Poland talks. But across the world, we all know that we
can’t wait anymore.”
Russell quoted a Danish climate activist who said: “The clock is
ticking and time has run out. It is now we have to face the
consequences of our over-consumption in the West.”
Yes, the clock is ticking. Tick, tick, tock.
Cracking the Climate Nut: Poznan Climate Talks — Day 2
The two week meeting of 190 nations
coming together to discuss the fate of the Earth, and the future
survival of the human species, got underway on Monday and continues
through December 12. According to two American bloggers, one on the
ground in Poznan, attending the meeting as an observer/activist, and
the other a professor monitoring the talks from afar, things are
heating up.
“Formal discussions began in earnest [on the second day of the current
climate talks] in Poznan,” RushPRnews learned from reading the Poznan
blog of Professor Hugh Bartling at the DePaul University in Chicago.
“There are numerous concurrent sessions taking place, but the one that
is of special interest is the Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-Term
Cooperative Action. This is the group that put together an 84-page
document over the past year that is serving as the basis of a ’shared
vision’ for the eventual post-Kyoto treaty. Basically that document
is a compilation of ideas presented by individual countries and
international organizations — many of which are contradictory or,
perhaps, incompatible. The negotiations in Poznan are meant to begin
the path towards resolving these contradictions.”
Bartling added: “Today there were at least three presentations at the
AWG-LCA session worth noting: Japan, the European Union, and China.
Each gave its vision for shared emission targets.”
“In other developments,” Bartling said, “the Climate Action Network
held a press conference pushing delegates for action and chiding major
emitters, like the US, for a lack of urgency. Also of interest, in a
nod to Obama’s nominee for Secretary of State [Hillary Clinton], the
French negotiator remarked on two different occasions that former U.S.
President Bill Clinton said in the 1990s that he ‘loves Kyoto,’
suggesting that the new Obama/Clinton team might revive the former
U.S. President’s enthusiasm.”
Keith Johnson, writing in a blog on the Wall Street Journal wesbite,
uses a bit of humor to paint a picture of what is happening this week
in Poland, noting: “A year ago, gaggles of climate negotiators at
least could enjoy the weather in Bali. This December, the same crowd
is huddled in the Polish winter as international climate negotiations
come to Poznan, Poland. Much like Bali, though, Poznan resembles a
Mexican standoff more than anything else.”
The Mexican standoff Johnson refers to? “Rich countries aren’t ready
to commit to specific targets for greenhouse-gas reductions by 2020.
The U.S. is in limbo, caught between an outgoing administration
lukewarm about tackling climate change and a gung-ho incoming
administration that can’t do anything about it until next year at the
earliest. Developing countries are sticking to their guns and
demanding richer countries take the earliest and biggest steps to curb
emissions.”
Johnson’s conclusion? “Analysts are scrambling to dampen already low
expectations, warning that the two-week long Polish summit won’t
likely resolve any of the thorny issues standing in the way of
drafting a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.”
Meanwhile, climate activists and protest groups have been making their
presence felt at the climate talks, too, trying to create eye-catching
photo opps for the international wire services to beam back to readers
on all seven continents.
In fact, several green groups have been upping the pressure on
delegates and world leaders with wacky stunts aimed at prodding them
to get moving on tackling the very divisive issue of global warming.
For example, the World Wildlife Fundwelcomed participants at the
12-day talksby handing out walnuts and urging them to “crack the
climate nut” and overcome the negotiations deadlock.
In another protest, Greenpeace unveiled a sculpture depicting the
Earth on the brink of destruction from a “tidal wave” of carbon
dioxide made of wood and coal.
Joshua Kahn Russell, a young twentysomething Brandeis graduate who on
the ground in Poznan this week, told RushPRnews that “the activist and
NGO community is buzzing with ideas about how to make the most of
these sessions to come out with a strong path toward the increasingly
looming deadlines next year in Copenhagen. One of our concerns is that
the delegates are trying to lower expectations for this process,
telling the press (and each other) that it’s okay not to expect too
much from the Poland talks. But across the world, we all know that we
can’t wait anymore.”
Russell quoted a Danish climate activist who said: “The clock is
ticking and time has run out. It is now we have to face the
consequences of our over-consumption in the West.”
Yes, the clock is ticking. Tick, tick, tock.