It’s Getting Hot In Here

Day one of the Conference of Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change has come and gone. Badged delegates have filled the halls of the largest Convention Center in Poznan, Poland, they have rejoiced in inaugural festivities and a smorgasbord of free junk, and they have partied down in a hanger-turned-ballroom on the dime of the wonderful citizens of Poland. But it has not taken long for the honeymoon period to fade and for the weight of the task incumbent upon these negotiators to bear upon them.

This conference marks the midway point in the two year window developed at last year’s COP in Bali, Indonesia, to come up with an international climate agreement to build on the Koyto Protocol’s previsions sunset in 2012. Since a global solution is required of a global problem on this scale, this process is our only existing good shot at pulling in all players to reign in carbon emissions by measures demanded by the scientific community.

For the two days preceding the COP, two hundred youth from around the world met at the Conference of Youth (COY). As at COP-14, COY-4 was all about taking stock of our progress and laying plans on the road through Copenhagen. But contrary to the basement-dwelling expectations being propagated by the largest emitters leading up to COP, the tone of COY was confidently ambitious. Where government delegates are taking a step back by debating decisions they have already made in the Bali Roadmap (eg. contact groups on Long-term Cooperative Action), youth delegates are leaping forward with cooperative strategy to build an international movement strong enough to demand attention from our representatives. I am attending my first COP along with twenty other youth delegates with SustainUS, a non-profit that connects young Americans to international environmental negotiations. Delegations like ours, comprising 500 young people, have converged from fifty countries to hold our leaders to a safe climate future.

And the gap between the US youth and delegates is particularly pronounced. The US government delegation got out in front in making clear its intention to advocate half-solutions and construct roadblocks to science-based targets less than four hours into the COP. In an opening press conference, Harlan Watson, lead negotiator for the US, essentially put forth nuclear energy and (heretofore non-existent) Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) as the items that the US has to offer to the negotiation.

This reckless position threatens to burst the Obama bubble around the world. In interviews with international press, I was prodded about my faith in the promises of the new administration to positively reengage with the global community and to address climate change with resolve matching the scale of the crisis. While I am excited about these prospects, my primary aim in Poznan is to insure that the outgoing administration doesn’t derail any chance that Obama might have to make good on these promises through the UNFCCC and Bali Roadmap. So stay tuned for the next two weeks of action-packed updates from the US flank of the international youth climate movement at Cop-14.