It’s Getting Hot In Here

You may have seen this photo, on the left, from the Bonn meeting of the UN Climate Negotiations. It seems simple enough, two men sitting at a table with a framed photograph perched in front of the microphone. Yet, it shows how everything has started to change on the fight to create a global agreement in Copenhagen this December. Why? It demonstrates how everything is in our hands now.

First, lets start with the framed photograph itself. You probably can’t see it too clearly, so lets take a look at the original. Floating above a sea of signs, Ethan Nuss of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network is speaking to the Power Shift 09 Lobby Day Rally in front of the US Capitol building. He is wearing a suit, but he is holding a megaphone. It is wicked cold out, due to a freak snowstorm. Ethan is an incredible speaker and despite the crowd noise is inspiring all the young people in the crowd, who are vigorously waving their signs, and fired up to go lobby Congress.

What does this have to do with Yvo de Boer, the UN’s top climate official and the Executive Secretary (think Secretary of State, not your dentist’s secretary) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change – the body charged with creating a global agreement on climate change, and why did he put this framed photo up? In Poznan, Poland – there was an intergenerational inquiry on the role of youth and the UN climate process. There, I recorded Yvo de Boer state that, ” I think that civil society loses its power, when NGOs put down their banners and put on suits.” He spoke on how young people need to provide the passion, the activism, and not lose sight of their goals in policy thickets. He also called for governments to live up to their promises to include youth representation. See Unicef’s reporting on it, here.

At Power Shift 09, there was an incredible effort to document the conference and tell our own story. Our New Media Warroom, filled with bloggers, photographers, and videographers hailing from the Obama campaign, youth climate organizations, and Fired Up Media – recorded the incredible gathering.

Robert vanWaarden, the leading international youth climate photographer, came with Fired Up Media to shoot the conference. He captured some of the most stunning images you will see of Power Shift, showing the importance and vitality of the youth climate movement. He took this photo of Ethan and the Power Shift rally. Two days after the rally, Yvo de Boer came to Washington DC to speak at the Brooking Institute, a thinktank, where a lineup of speakers talked about political ‘realities’ that will force compromising on Capitol Hill. You can read a bit about it, here. Robert and I printed out the photo, met with Yvo and told him, “We may have put on suits, but we are never putting down our signs.”

I asked those pontificating about the impossibility of getting midwestern senators to support a climate agreement, if they thought the emergence of a citizen-based climate movement could change political ‘realities’, on camera. They seemed to be surprised to have heard of Power Shift 2009, let alone the fact that young people are stepping up to lead this movement. This brings us to the second part of the first photo, the man sitting next to Yvo de Boer.

His name is David Turnbull, he is 26, and he is the Director of the Climate Action Network – International, the coordinating body for Environmental NGOs at the UN Climate process. [Full Disclosure: He is my roommate.] David and Yvo are presiding over the liason meeting between the NGO community and the UN in Bonn. The fact that a twenty-six year old man is serving in this role and joining other rockstars like EAC co-founder, and 25 year old Meg Boyle, as a lead negotiator for Greenpeace, while Yvo de Boer holds up Power Shift 09 as the model for climate action before the assembled NGO community, means that we are in a new era. The youth climate movement might not have the money, the glass faced building in DC, or teams of economists at our beck and call, but we are starting to influence and direct the global climate movement. That is the story this photo tells us.

However, this story won’t be told without the photographers, videographers, writers, bloggers, and networks around the world dedicated to telling it. That is why I have been working on Fired Up Media and have been excited to partner with Robert vanWaarden to shoot the youth climate movement since the UN climate talks in Bali. Thanks to Matt Maiorana for snapping this last photo in Bonn and to everyone dedicated to telling the stories of victory in this movement.