It’s Getting Hot In Here

by Jesse Boudart, Cascade Climate Network

Week 1 is finished.  Negotiations moved forward, even though they still seem at a standstill.  The G77 seem adamant of the mitigation numbers, 1.5 C and 350 ppm.   I don’t blame them for their demands because of the implication of 2 C could mean certain destruction for many of their island states.  Even worse, I feel like I am just emitting hot air from our requests.

I feel powerless.  I have been meeting in our technology transfer group, to review the policy papers that are on the table, many of which we aren’t even supposed to have.  Thankfully, we have a chance to review them and read what is going through the writers’ heads.  I wish they were stronger.  I also wish that there was something concrete we could work toward.  We are surely making recommendations to improve the papers, some of which we submitted to our US writers.  But overall, who knows if they will actually take them.  Further, who knows if the negotiators will actually to agree to them.  In the end though, the text is simply not as strong as it should be, not as responsible as it should be.

Through these dire seeming outcomes, it is good to blow off some steam.  Kate, Brian, Rachel and I went to the Carlsberg brewery.  What an awesome place!  They have been making beer there on a huge scale for a long time.  Through their tour, well, it was more like a museum!  Where they displayed how people made beer even from a very old age.  It was very interesting to note the bottle designs on the Carlsberg bottles.  Some bottles included the well known swastika, although it was comforting to note that that design was on a bottle before the 1930s (In which it was backwards, and I’m sure meant its original meaning of good luck or well being).  But I digress, after this wonderful history lesson and tour of the Brewery, us four talked about what was causing a serious itch.

Our current tactics seem to be lacking.  Continue reading ‘The hope in which we hope to create, hopefully’

Organize a Solidarity Sit in For Climate Justice. Now is the time.

Demands for Climate Justice have erupted with an exciting energy on every stage of COP15 – thousands of marchers approached the Bella Center, hundreds of delegates walked in an attempt to join the People’s Assembly, and as  I write dozens of youth are sitting in to demand a fair, ambitious, and binding deal from the COP15 process.

Climate Justice, however, will not be secured this week in Copenhagen. It will be won through the grassroots movements of the Global South and the unwavering solidarity of movements in developed nations. Both movements now turn their eyes to Copenhagen, on the actions of the negotiators, and the thousands who have gone to stand for Climate Justice. We are inspired by their actions inside and outside the Bella Center today, and now, right now, is the perfect moment to take that flame and spread it.

You are an actor in the struggle for Climate Justice. You have agency. We have power. Hit the phones, now, don’t wait, call your friends – it is urgent, more urgent than final exams – and organize a sit-in action in solidarity with those standing for Climate Justice in Copenhagen.

We are a force to be reckoned with. Let the world know that not only do the thousands of global citizens who converged on Copenhagen stand for Climate Justice – we all do. The whole world watched today, tomorrow, let the whole world spring into action.

Do it.

We just began our seventh hour here in the Bella Centre, sitting-in until world leaders achieve a fair, ambituous, and binding treaty. The past few hours have been incredibly positive as party members, NGO members, and UN observers have come by to meet us and ensure our wellbeing by offering us food, water, and blankets. Members of party delegations have walked by giving us a thumbs up, and several climate A-listers have walked by to shake our hands and congratulate us on our bravery.

We have been approached by media from all over the world…let us take you all through the discussions we have been having over the past few hours:

How long are you planning on being here?

Until we reach a fair, ambitious, and legally-binding treaty. The security has said that if we plan on staying, then they will see us in the morning. Hopefully, we will not have to wait too much longer.

Do you think that it can happen?

It can and it must happen. Heads of state and heads of government are going to be coming together to discuss climate change, so this is the space to achieve the fair, ambituous, and legally-binding treaty we are asking for. There are many countries that are very capable of reducing their emissions and they need to, and they can. They just need to get here and show the political will to reduce emissions, to safeguard people’s lives and livelihoods, and to show that the UN can come to an agreement.

Continue reading ‘Live Blog: Seventh Hour Of Peaceful Sit-In At The UN Conference Centre’

Here is what you need to know:

• Things have gone a little crazy in Copenhagen.
• Civil society has been severely restricted from entering the conference venue, and have effectively been banned on Friday, which is the final day of high level negotiations.
• Friends of the Earth, which in my opinion remains the “big ENGO” most closely connected to the grassroots, has beenbanned from entering the venue at all as of this morning.
• FYI, in my experience (and I’ve been to a few of these things), both of these developments are unprecedented and shocking.
• 350.org has called for a climate justice fast to be taken by individuals, for 24 hours, starting at any time on Thursday. I think this is a great action, and maybe when I turn my paper in I will tell you why in more detail. Let me just say now that I am participating, I think you should too, and i think you should tell all your friends. Take the time to think about the way climate change is going to cause worldwide food scarcity and famine. Pray.
• 350 is also asking you to call heads of state: check out the handy list and the call tool. You don’t have to just call your own head of state, either. Climate change affects us all and the responsibility is global. In particular, fire up your Skype and call one of the leaders on the green list and thank them for supporting the target of 350 ppm.

If you are reading this blog, it means you care - YOU CAN HELP, SO DO IT.

Written by Ellie Johnston, a SustainUS youth delegate and senior at the University of North Carolina Asheville

I have almost been in Copenhagen for two weeks now and have been watching from the inside and outside of the Bella Center as the UN Climate Change Negotiations proceed. At this point the progress that is needed to have a fair, ambitious, and binding treaty has not occurred. The nations of the world are still stuck in a political gridlock and the transparency of this process for observers is becoming increasingly limited.

Continue reading ‘Inside Bella: Where are we now?’

By Dominic Frongillo, a SustainUS youth delegate in Copenhagen and Town Councilman from Caroline, NY

Dear friends, family, and colleagues,

Yesterday began the highly-anticipated second week in Copenhagen, when the outcome of the UN climate negotiations will be decided.

Thousands of newly-arriving government delegates and observers are pouring into the full conference center, and the corridors are now
full to capacity.  Hallways are like a busy metro station; hundreds of delegates in suits and carrying briefing documents rushing by every
minute. People’s faces express excitement and wariness. It’s sometimes challenging to focus amid the bustle.

The already-tight security is tightening down even further, in anticipation of 117 heads of state arriving later in the week. Traveling in the city center today, I saw vans of police patrolling the streets and helicopters flying overhead.  A high, second security fence was erected around the conference center.  Secondary badges have been issued to limit the number of entrants — including youth.  There
are rumors of a large protest planned Wednesday morning outside the conference center.  **see below for update**

Continue reading ‘Updates from Copenhagen’

Video by Ekta Kothari.
Cross-posted from Project Survival Media.
Footage of the arch was also posted on The Huffington Post.

Sometimes it’s hard to describe an experience. Sometimes words, film, or photos fail to capture the overwhelming feeling that we are witnessing something truly extraordinary. We say, “You just had to be there.”

Enter the media. No one can be everywhere at once, so there are people whose job it is to go collect stories, verify them by checking a second source, and then paint a picture for the folks back home. People rely on the media to keep them informed about what’s going on in the world. And while the media can’t capture every detail, while there will unavoidably be some omissions and differences in emphasis, as reporters, it is part of our job to tell the whole story, and to pick out the wheat from the chaff.

This is why the coverage so far of the December 12 march in Copenhagen, Denmark is so disappointing to me. During the event, I was working in downtown Copenhagen alongside TckTckTck, 350.org, and Avaaz staff, collecting photos and videos coming in from actions all over the world. Behind me, a huge 2 by 5 foot screen showed local TV coverage of the march.

I was inside a media hub, surrounded by information, and the positive messages that kept flooding in. But until I heard verbal accounts from marchers and observers, and saw the footage that Ekta Kothari, Project Survival Media videographer, had shot during the day, I assumed that this particular action, the march in Copenhagen, had been pretty scary. Most of it wasn’t.

Continue reading ‘December 12, Copenhagen: The Real Headline’

These are shocking images of police brutality from outside the Bella Center where the UN climate talks seem to be fracturing just hours before over 100 heads of state are scheduled to arrive to debate a climate deal. It’s all the more striking to see the faces of some of our friends and co-workers in this video from CNN (it can’t embed, but please do watch, it is striking footage) — please send your thoughts and prayers to those who are bravely taking part in today’s demonstrations.

I’m writing from inside the negotiations  where the mood is getting tenser by the hour. The formal sessions have been delayed at the moment as diplomats supposedly work behind the scenes to move the process forward. In rooms around the building, many developing country delegations are meeting to discuss their endgame strategy and hold strong while the pressure from rich countries continues to mount (see this previous post on Obama’s call to Ethiopia which may have resulted in its weak statements supposedly on behalf of Africa — echoed today in the formal negotiations). Speeches by more heads of state — including presidents from island nations and other vulnerable countries — are scheduled to begin again in a few hours.

More images below the fold.

Continue reading ‘Copenhagen: Hundreds Arrested in Protest; Police Brutality; Pressure Builds Inside the Conference’

UPDATE: Danish speakers can read an article here about this protest in Politiken.

Today, 100 COP-15 delegates – mostly from NGOs, but led by two members of the Bolivian government delegation, and with dozens of members of organizations from the Global South and Indigenous groups – marched out of the Copenhagen climate talks and tried to join the People’s Assembly at the Reclaim Power protest outside, only to be blocked and severely beaten by Danish police (who were working closely together with UN security).

The police cracked down incredibly hard on the Reclaim Power protest today – both inside and outside the Bella Center – and arrested 240 people (on top of the over 1,000 that they’ve arrested in the past week), but they didn’t prevent the protest from being an incredibly powerful and formative moment in the global movement for climate justice.

The Reclaim Power protest was co-organized by Climate Justice Now! and Climate Justice Action, two international networks of people’s movements, Indigenous groups, and grassroots activists from around the world – including Via Campesina, Indigenous Environmental Network, Focus on the Global South, Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment. The action sought to subvert the undemocratic and unjust UN COP process by creating a People’s Assembly, which would privilege the voices for climate justice of Indigenous peoples and people from the Global South – those groups that have been most marginalized from the COP-15 talks.

While thousands of activists on the streets outside were marching towards the Bella Center, our goal was to march out of the Bella Center, and hold this People’s Assembly in the streets outside the conference. Continue reading ‘Police Beat NGO Delegates Trying to Join Protest Outside COP-15′

Image from Blog Michael Stoltze

Connie Hedegaard just resigned as President of the UN climate talks here in Copenhagen. The Danish Prime Minister to take over.

Did we predict this to happen? Not exactly, though the move is general procedure here at the United Nations. It seems that it is the number of Heads of State that pushed this decision, which makes it more appropriate for the PM to negotiate.)

The pressing worry of the coming days here is that the negotiators who have been involved in this for years are now stepping back and letting politicians make the decisions, with a politician running the talks. The experts are on the sidelines.

The brilliant part of this is that negotiations and consultations — for the first time — are being done on every single level of government. It’s remarkable. Leaders, ministers, negotiators, etc.

It’s all hands on deck – now, to sink or to sail?