It’s Getting Hot In Here

Take a look at this video from the beautiful “vigil for survival” in Copenhagen last night, inspired by the thousands of vigils that this movement hosted around the world last weekend:

Global civil society responds to the failure of leaders to raise ambitions for a real deal in Copenhagen.

On what was scheduled to be the last day of the Copenhagen climate talks, a diverse crowd of global civil society locked out of the negotiations sent a clear message of “Climate Shame” to Obama, Merkel, Hu, Harper, and other leaders who are most responsible for the current stalling of the negotiations.

Let’s be clear. There is one reason why climate negotiations have not moved forward in Copenhagen – the failure of the U.S. and other developed nations to support  emission reduction targets and climate finance at the levels needed to avoid catastrophic climate change.

Today a UN document was leaked that stated what many climate experts have been claiming throughout Copenhagen – that the combined commitments of all nations in Copenhagen would leave the world with 3 degrees celsius of warming and 550ppm eCO2. A rise of 3C would mean up to 170 million more people suffering severe coastal floods and 550 million more at risk of hunger, according to the Stern review. Continue reading ‘Climate Sham[e] – No Ambition Puts Climate Talks on Ice’

It’s only 4:00 pm in Copenhagen, but the sun has already set and the cold night has set in. The general gloom could be a reflection of the faces of many activists here in Copenhagen, many of them huddled in the Oksnehallen warehouse in downtown Copenhagen, exiled from the Bella Center where the actual UN negotiations are taking place.

In the last few days, 99% of civil society participants have been denied access to the talks over supposed security concerns, forcing groups like ourselves to improvise (lucky for 350.org, we’ve got an incredible team still on the inside: Subhashni Raj, one of our 350.org organizers, who is now officially on the Fijian delegation, and Mike Tidwell, who has a press badge from his excellent show at Earth Beat radio and is leading a small media team that’s still working the press room).

Yet, despite a lack of direct access and a pervailing sense that developing countries are failing to provide real leadership, many of the people that I have been talking to here in Copenhagen remain doggedly hopeful. Not because they expect a miracle speech from Obama or a breakthrough between the US and China. Not because they think the EU will come up with an innovative finance package or that Australia and others will stop bullying smaller countries. In fact, their hope has little to do with our supposed “leaders” at all. It has to do with all of you.

Continue reading ‘Climate Sham[e], Climate Hope: Citizens Prepare for Major Aerial in Copenhagen’

There was a time, say 12 months ago, when each speech by Obama was anticipated with a mix of excitement and hope. Despite myself, I felt that same mix of giddy expectation as he took the stage this morning at the Bella Center where the UN Climate Talks continue to stumble forward. All morning, news of secret meetings and leaked texts have been circulating around Copenhagen: the US and China are striking a deal! The Maldives is Backing down! China won’t budge! The Islands are standing strong! But the real focus has been on Obama and whether he can muster the leadership, courage, and, let’s face it, common sense to make the US commit to a real deal.

Continue reading ‘Obama’s Climate Sham[e]: Empty Rhetoric in Copenhagen Speech’

On Tuesday morning I posted this note on Facebook:
“If you could see what is happening here in Copenhagen you would be outraged. After two decades of negotiating climate change policy to death, wealthy countries are blocking a real deal with weak targets and loopholes. The next 72 hours I will need you to act to seize the moment of Copenhagen. Please be prepared to act.”

Now is the time to act. First I will ask for what is needed. Then I will explain some context.

1. Today we need as many of you who possibly can to organize a sit-in in your Senator’s office to read 12 million 13,662,439 names of global voices demanding a fair, ambitious, and legally-binding climate treaty in Copenhagen. The first sit-in of this kind was a nine-hour act of civil disobedience by 19 international youth outside the main plenary in Copenhagen. This sparked solidarity reader sit-ins at the Canadian Prime Minister’s office and the U.S. State Department on Thursday. On Friday youth are calling for a non-violent civil disobedience to demand a fair, ambitious, and binding climate treaty on the final day.

Here is a guide to help you pull it off:
http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2009/12/17/solidarity-sit-ins-spread-resources-for-your-own-event/
Here is the original story:
http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2009/12/17/live-blog-youth-activists-refuse-to-leave-before-everyones-voices-are-heard/

2. Please call President Obama (202-456-1111) to urge him to “support the call of the most vulnerable nations for a 350ppm carbon reduction target and a goal of keeping temperatures below 1.5 degrees Celsius in the global climate treaty.” This has been a critical demand of vulnerable nations in Copenhagen fighting for their survival.

That’s it. Now some context as promised.
Continue reading ‘Tomorrow is Today’

By Valida Prentice, who offers us her reflections from the nine-hour sit-in and climate justice fast

Cross-posted from TheClimateers

I spent months helping prepare policy briefs on adaptation, plan how the SustainUS communications team would interface with policy and actions, and set up a framework for the international youth communications and media production teams to work within at COP. All that is now over. My personal (unaffiliated) involvement in yesterday’s unapproved sit-in inside the Bella Center served as a transition into a new activist life outside of the COP-15 conference center.

In the end, we held our sit-in for nine hours. At around 2am, we walked away voluntarily (in some senses of the word), because the UNFCCC Secretariat and the security guards communicated an ultimatum to us: if they had to physically remove us, all 300 NGO observers (reduced from the 7,000 allowed in on Tuesday and Wednesday) would be banned from entry on Thursday and Friday. Three hundred is a paltry sum compared to the total number of accredited NGO observers (around 20,000), but it is better than zero. Continue reading ‘Life Goes on Outside the Bella Center’

Cross-posted from Project Survival Media

I know this is technically old-hat, a whole week old, or a dinosaur in blogging-years, but this is a really wonderful video that captures a powerful moment, and I wanted to be sure to share this with all the youth who read IGHIH.

On Monday 7th December 2009, seventeen year old Christina Ora spoke on behalf of the global youth movement at the plenary session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Longterm Cooperative Action at COP15.

Christina is a high school student from Honiara, Solomon Islands. She passionately told an audience of thousands, including negotiators from all over the world, that it was time for action. Christina is a member of Project Survival Pacific, and is supported by GetUp Australia.

Watch this video, and get inspired by a young woman who has come to COP to fight for the survival of her homeland.

I am proud to announce the arrival of the mini-documentary, Rising Tides: Sunderbands, India. This documentary is the work of the India, Asia team of Project Survival Media. I asked team leader Ekta Kothari to tell me about her experience making the film, and she did!

“The story was incredibly powerful to film. I could never put the experience into words, but let me try to paint you a picture:

The Sunderbans is a place with many riches – An archipelago of mangrove ecosystems, and home to the Royal Bengal Tigers, boasting a biodiversity extremely rich in flora and fauna – right next door to my city, Kolkata.

And yet, the first time I visited these islands, all I could find was devastation. Continue reading ‘A Video about Survival: Rising Tide’

Don’t get me wrong.  Most of the time, I love Washington Governor Christine Gregoire.  She’s one of the most environmentally progressive governors in the US, and has done great things to help jumpstart the clean energy economy in the Northwest.  I also think it’s great that she’s showing her level of commitment to the issue by attending the Copenhagen talk in person.  However a statement from Gregoire, made in Copenhagen during an interview with Grist, floored me a little.  According to Gregoire, “America is back in its rightful position” in the climate negotiations, ready to lead at last after years of lagging behind other countries.

Well, the US position has certainly improved since the days of George Bush – but that’s a pretty low standard for “leadership.”  Leadership would mean, um, coming to the table in Copenhagen with one of the most ambitious emissions-reduction targets of any major economy, then encouraging other countries to raise their targets to match ours.  Instead, the US went into the negotiations with the least impressive emissions-reduction target of any major polluter: a 4% reduction below 1990 levels by 2020.  That doesn’t even come close to touching the 40% reduction below 1990 emissions levels that scientists say we need to make to have any chance of avoiding catastrophic warming.  It’s also nowhere near the 20-30% reductions the European Union has already offered in Copenhagen. Continue reading ‘The US “Back in its Rightful Position”? Um, Not Quite’

More pictures available at www.risingtidenorthamerica.org

Boston, MA – Activists with climate group Rising Tide hung a 30-foot banner reading, “System Change, Not Climate Change” on the Harvard Bridge (Massachusetts Ave.) spanning Boston and Cambridge this afternoon. The action comes in the final days of the United Nations Climate Talks in Copenhagen, as 115 world leaders arrive while negotiations have deadlocked. In the past week, over one thousand activists have been arrested in protests.

“The United Nations process has systematically failed the world’s marginalized countries and consistently excludes those that would dare support and fight on behalf of those countries,” said David Bukett of Rising Tide. “We need system change to create a world which is truly just and sustainable to solve the climate crisis.”

Continue reading ‘Boston Climate Activists Hang 30-Foot Banner Off Harvard Bridge During U.N. Climate Conference’