It’s Getting Hot In Here

Robert Kennedy, Jr. calls for a stop to the blasting of Coal River Mountain and protection of nation’s clean energy resources, on first day of global climate talks in Copenhagen

Today over 300 coalfield residents and their allies rallied to stop the blasting of Coal River Mountain and to transition to a clean energy future at the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.  Coal River Mountain, the site of a proposed wind farm if blasting can be halted, has become a line in the sand in the fight against mountaintop removal coal mining.

We listened to a couple of dozen inspirational speakers, many of whom were local people who have seen the damage of mountaintop removal coal mining firsthand. They talked about why it is so important to save Coal River Mountain, their communities and our country from the many problems associated with mountaintop removal and our addiction to coal. Continue reading ‘Hundreds Rally to Save Coal River Mountain Today’

Cross Posted from Grist.

Well it was opening day of the madness that is COP15: the meeting of the UNFCCC that is supposedly going to decide the fate of the entire world. And what better way to open it than with broad civil society outrage at the egregious lack of democracy in the process.

Here’s the inside scoop: the Danish presidency is desperate for a positive spin on any outcome of the climate negotiations here. That means forcing an outcome by bringing together the rich and powerful nations to broker a deal in private and then to announce it to the rest of the world. There is widespread concern of US-friendly text being “parachuted” into the negotiating documents, at the expense of G77 countries (everyone else).

We all know that international agreements involve quite a lot of back-room deals and often intimidation. We just usually don’t expect it to come from the facilitators. Obviously this is both antithetical to the UN process but also to the duties of the Danish Government in playing a neutral convening role at the Conference of Parties. It’s not just an attack on democracy, but it amounts to an attack on the rest of the world on behalf of a few powerful interests. It’s the sort of “green room” behavior one would expect from the World Trade Organization, not the United Nations, which has a consensus process designed to make global decisions.

The logic is this – the US needs to be on board to get any deal, so therefore let’s force a watering-down of the process to get the US to sign. Déjà vu? It’s errily like we’re replaying the Kyoto meeting in 1997. Remember how the world watered down the treaty (giving birth to the concept of offsets and the Clean Development Mechanism) so that the US would sign? …and the US never even signed anyway.

Will COP15 be a race to the bottom, hijacked to pander to the United States? Today Raman Mehta from Action Aid India said, “The global community trusted the Danish government to host a fair and transparent process but they have betrayed that trust. Most importantly, they are betraying those who are disproportionately impacted by climate change and whose voices are not being heard. This unfair behavior strikes a blow to all efforts to achieve justice and equity in the climate change negotiations process.”

Civil Society has brought foreward a number of specific concerns:

Continue reading ‘Copenhagen Day 1: Scandal! Bullying!’

Hello dear movement friends,

I have a very important ask of you, from one member of the climate family to another. Please read on.

http://powershift09.org/rapidresponse

I’m so excited and grateful to be here in Copenhagen for the International Climate Negotiations. These next two weeks are going to be jam-packed and intense. But it’s the organizers in the states who have the big job.

This weekend was the Conference of Youth where over 500 youth delegates from around the world gathered to prepare for our role as youth .

I have met so many inspiring young people- a young woman in Indonesia helping her farmers in her community adapt with the changing climate and its effect on agricultural production… Organizers from Australia who put on a spectacular flash mob dance to cap off their own Power Shift conference. And to think that, as we were embarking as climate leaders in our country, what happened here two years ago (Power Shift 2007) has become a wave of Power Shifts around the world! As you know, the US carries not only a huge carbon footprint, but a powerful influence over the outcome of the conference- what commitments other countries will make (or not make) and ultimately, the fate of these young people around the world.

Continue reading ‘Join Us in Copenhagen’

This editorial is one of the most incredible examples I’ve ever seen of the mainstream media taking an activist role in fighting climate change.

Today, 56 newspapers in 45 countries around the world – in 20 languages – ran an unprecedented common editorial, calling for bold and justice-based action against climate change in Copenhagen.

The papers included the UK’s Guardian, the Miami Herald, Canada’s Toronto Star, Mexico’s El Universal, Argentina’s Diario Clarin, China’s Economic Observer, India’s The Hindu, Bangladesh’s Daily Star, Pakistan’s Daily Times, Vietnam’s Tuoi Tre, Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung, France’s Le Monde, Italy’s La Repubblica, Spain’s El Pais, Russia’s Novaya Gazeta, Israel’s Maariv, Dubai’s Gulf News, South Africa’s Mail & Guardian, and Uganda’s Daily Monitor. Most of the papers, like the UK’s Guardian, ran it on their front page (you can see the Guardian‘s front page here).

The writing of the editorial was lead by the Guardian, but it was co-written with the editorial boards of 20 of these 56 papers. As Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger put it: “Newspapers have never done anything like this before – but they have never had to cover a story like this before.”

The project began as a conversation between two editors from the Guardian and China’s Economic Observer, and was quickly endorsed by editorial boards all over the world. The one notable major country where the Guardian had difficulty finding a major national paper, of course, was the U.S., where the independent Miami Herald was the only paper to run it. “A number of major US titles evinced support for the project, even conceding that they agreed with everything in the editorial, but stopped short of signing up… It is hard not to be struck by the parallel with the Kyoto agreement when the US stood to one side as the world began to move against climate change.”

The editorial also has an admirably strong focus on climate justice: while stating that developing countries must “pledge meaningful and quantifiable action of their own,” it also states that “the rich world is responsible for most of the accumulated carbon in the atmosphere [and thus] must now take a lead” and that “social justice demands that the industrialised world digs deep into its pockets and pledges cash to help poorer countries adapt to climate change.”

But above all, the editorial demands urgency: “The politicians in Copenhagen can and must agree the essential elements of a fair and effective deal and, crucially, a firm timetable for turning it into a treaty. Next June’s UN climate meeting in Bonn should be their deadline.”

Continue reading ’56 Newspapers Around World Publish Common Editorial Calling for Climate Action’

Voices from around the world, at the Conference of Youth (COY), ring loud and clear as Copenhagen kicks off!

You can read more daily updates from the ACE team in Copenhagen at our blog, too: http://www.acespace.org/blog/

More than 30 youth from Australia, Mexico, India, Sweden, the US, Germany, and around the world  staged a “die-in” today outside the main plenary at COP15 with the message – “The World Wants a Real Deal” and “Real Deal Saves Lives”.

A real deal was in jeopardy today as speculation emerged that the EU and Japan may steal billions of dollars from humanitarian aid budgets in order to offer it in a global climate deal. With more than 100 heads of state coming to Copenhagen next week it is hard to believe they would leave without some sort of agreement. The question now is – will they settle on a real deal or empty promises?

A real deal in Copenhagen means three things:
Real Science. A Global Peak in Emissions by 2015.
To save lives and avoid critical climate tipping points, global greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2015, and atmospheric concentrations must rapidly decline to stable, safe level at 350ppm CO2e.

Real Money. $200 billion/year by 2020.

Developed countries need to provide at least US$200 billion in public financing per year by 2020, in addition to existing aid commitments, for developing country adaptation and mitigation actions.

Real Teeth. A Legally-Binding Treaty.
Leaders must agree at Copenhagen to sign a legally binding, enforceable treaty as soon as possible.

Continue reading ‘Mass “Die-In” Outside Plenary at Climate Talks’

COP15 happens inside here. It’s huge.

Here are the sculptures outside the Bella Centre. The picture itself is quite self-explanatory. You see skinny kids standing in water up to angle height. That is what is going to happen with climate change – the sea level rises, so their homeland will soon be under water. More frequent extreme weather affects their lives heavily, because they are living in LDCs and are most vulnerable to climate change and its consequences.

Due to the large number of total delegates and the limited capacity of the Bella Centre (15,000 capacity, 20,000 participants), the civil societies have only got a limited number of tickets of the Opening of COP15, which means that many observers cannot get inside Planetary 1 to see the actual opening ceremony. It was a bit disappointing for us, since most of us did not get in. Nevertheless we went to Planetary 2 to watch the live broadcast. It was very crowded and filled with people. Continue reading ‘COP15 Opening Ceremony’

Posted on behalf of Sasha Macko and the Williams College Climate Justice Fast team.

I haven’t eaten for seven days.  To walk up stairs is like climbing Everest and I have almost forgotten what food tastes like. However, while this week has been a challenge to my daily routine, I woke up reeling with a combination of sleep deprivation and dizziness this morning knowing that this day marked an important moment for my future. This is the day that I have been waiting for, December 7^th, the start of the international climate talks in Copenhagen.

I am accompanied in my hunger strike by about fifty Williams College students and faculty, and countless others, who are fasting in solidarity with the Climate Justice Fast! team in an effort to make a strong impact on leaders in Copenhagen at the COP15. We are hoping to convey the extreme significance of climate change and the critical need for progressive action internationally. Officially starting on November 6^th and running until the end of the negotiations on December 18^th or longer, the Climate Justice Fasters will consume (or have consumed) only water for periods ranging from 24 hours to 42+ days.

Continue reading ‘Climate Justice Fast: One Small College’s Efforts’

This post is provided on behalf of Project Survival Media – a grassroots, student-run media project designed to highlight the true costs of fossil fuels in the lead up to Copenhagen. 

On the eve of the Copenhagen climate talks, communities and individuals around the planet are thinking about survival.  In a world of rapidly destabilizing climates, this word means different things to different people.  To the citizens of the Maldive Islands survival may mean a keeping global temperatures low enough to prevent the permanent flooding of their homeland, while to the inhabitants of African nations that repeatedly have expressed frustration with the unwillingness of industrialized countries to listen to what our own climate scientists are telling us, the main threat to survival may be catastrophic drought threatening to engulf huge regions. 

One key to survival for human beings everywhere, though, is food.  A couple of weeks ago for Project Survival Media, I wrote about the struggles of farmers to build communities based on sustainable food in my own home state of Oregon.  In the Northwestern United States we’re lucky that most people have relatively easy access to healthy, locally grown food; meanwhile, in West Oakland, Project Survival Media team members have been documenting the difficulties of maintaining a healthy diet in the “food deserts” of the inner city.  In the end, our reliance on processed, packaged and fast food produced through industrial agriculture is hurting human health as much as an input-heavy oil-based agricultural system is hurting the Earth and the climate. Continue reading ‘This is About Survival’

On the eve of the Copenhagen climate negotiations, as our movement shifts into high gear to get a global deal (and a fair, ambitious, and binding one at that!), I wanted to chronicle and reflect on some of the grassroots action that has been going on (lots of it in just the past week!).

There have been a ton of great posts reflecting on the White House Youth Clean Energy Forum.  One thing that came out of each was how our local leadership both made the meeting possible, and made the meeting successful.  Without the thousands of young people calling on Obama for his leadership, and calling very specifically for a meeting with youth leaders, the meeting never would have happened.  Once in the room, the 150 young leaders from diverse backgrounds had a ton of experience and insight to offer, and were able to demonstrate that there truly is grassroots leadership across the country.  We had campus leaders from dozens of states, community organizers on the frontlines of stopping mountaintop removal mining, field organizers setting up innovative programs to fuel green jobs training with home weatherization, and clean energy entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley.

And while we had this impressive cross-section of voices in DC, the action was still happening across the country (and abroad!):

• Young people working with the Maryland Student Climate Coalition and Chesapeake Climate Action Network led a No Coal Rally in Baltimore to oppose proposed transmission lines from West Virginia into their state.  What would be carried on those transmissions lines?  You guessed it, coal power.  Check out this great video they produced and keep a special eye out for youth voices Zainab and Zoe.
• Students from across Connecticut hit up the office of Senator Lieberman this past Friday to deliver two very important messages: as a chief architect of climate legislation, he must ensure that the authority of the EPA is not gutted and that his state maintains clean and healthy air, and that our targets and timelines must be in-line with what science demands and lead us to 350 ppm.  Check out their boldness in this video:
  Continue reading ‘Taking Our Actions From Local to Global, and Making Sure Our Voices Are Heard in Copenhagen’