On December 1, 2008 at 1:30 pm (GMT+1) US State Department officials Harlan Watson and Dan Reifsnyder made their first statement to the press at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference in Pozan, Poland. No one was surprised at how out of touch they were but it made our blood boil all the same.
United States youth demonstrated in the recent US election their demand for sweeping change from Washington. We are disappointed, though not surprised, to see the outgoing administration ignore this call. We hope that the US delegation will not derail the next administration’s opportunity to positively re-engage in the international community and build a more just, prosperous, and clean energy future.
The US State Department’s statement today makes clear that the outgoing administration remains dangerously out of touch with what the world needs to combat global climate change. In the United States and on the world stage, people are clamoring for global cooperation to create bold, binding, and just climate policy in line with science. As American youth, we want the world to know that the current US administration position does not legitimately represent American popular opinion on this issue.”
- David Sievers, US youth delegate from Washington, DC
A powerful, organized international youth presence at the UN climate negotiations began in full force in Montreal (’05) and has continued to grow in Nairobi (’06), Bali (’07), and now in Poland. The delegation is being organized by SustainUS and the Energy Action Coalition to facilitate youth involvement in international policy-making and advocate for a sustainable future. The over twenty youth US delegates are working with hundreds of young people from all over the world to advocate for a shared vision of bold, binding, and just climate treaty with science-based targets.
At the negotiations, the US youth delegates will be working with government delegates, fellow civil society members, and other youth to promote youth-friendly and future-focused policies related to sustainable development and climate change. They will present policy proposals, lobby US State Department representatives, and hopefully speak with members of President-elect Obama’s transition team. In addition, they will be working with the other international youth delegations to do colorful actions, demonstrations and street theater outside the conference.
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What was the substance of this statement that was so “out of touch”? What are these youths proposing instead? This communication tells us of the writers’ emotions, but there is no communication of what they want. I believe they would be far more effective at getting what they (we) want if they would tell us what that is.
Thanks for reading. I hope you’ll keep reading as the whole youth delegation is blogging regularly and laying out lots of more detailed different policy perspectives. In summary, we are demanding bold, binding, and just climate policy both domestically and internationally that is in line with what science says we need.
In more specific terms we expect the US to get its act together at home and globally.
Within the US we need to immediately move towards 100% clean energy (and emphatically rejecting dirty dangerous energy sources like nuclear and coal that industry is promoting as a false solution), capping and immediately reducing emissions, and creating millions of good, green jobs.
Globally, we need to be a positive force in dealing with this global problem. We have done way more than our fair share in accelerating this problem and must act accordingly now.
Gotta get back to the negotiations. Cheers! Brianna