It’s Getting Hot In Here

This Tuesday, student activists from New England had an exciting opportunity to present our Declaration for Clean Energy to leadership and press at the UN Conference of the Parties in Cancun, Mexico.

Students for a Just and Stable Future in front of the Massachusetts state house. The New England Coalition unites justice and sustainability issues and pressure the state government to act.

The Declaration for Clean Energy is a five page document written by 170 members of Students for a Just and Stable Future (SJSF), a New England based network of students who have united to fight climate change and work towards a just and stable future for all of humanity.  At the press conference in Cancun, student delegates presented our declaration with a statement demanding legitimate action from policymakers on all levels of United States government to pass meaningful comprehensive legislation on climate, and insisting that global leaders agree to a legally binding treaty that will return our global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration to a safe level of less than 350 parts per million.

As the international negotiations begin to wrap up, it is clear that they will not produce any real results.  Powerful nations are refusing to hold themselves accountable, the seriousness of the science is still being ignored, and the voices of youth and disadvantaged communities are being shut out completely.  Ethan Buckner, a student delegate from the Sierra Student Coalition who presented on our behalf, had his badge taken away and was removed from the negotiations shortly after our press conference simply for participating in a march alongside youth from the global south, indigenous people, and environmental justice communities who are already suffering from the effects from climate change.  Simply put, International leaders are ignoring the voice of the people, and they think they can get away with it. Continue reading ‘Raising our voice for a Just and Stable Future’

Adapted from a press briefing between American and Chinese youth in Cancun. Click here to see a clip from this briefing aired on China Central TV.

For the past two weeks at the U.N negotiations in Cancun, youth representing the major world powers, from the Chinese Youth Delegation, Sierra Student Coalition, SustainUS, and Cascade Climate Network, have converged in Cancun to form the U.S China Youth Climate Exchange, an innovative, multi-pronged initiative and to demonstrate the sort of cooperation and creativity that our nations’ leaders should be working toward to solve the climate crisis.

One crucial aspect of our efforts is a shared action to send the message to U.S. and Chinese politicians; we need both China and the U.S rising to the occasion, racing toward the clean energy future. I’ve had the amazing opportunity to work closely with Yingao, my counterpart on the Chinese youth delegation to plan and drive forward this action. In planning this action, what began as a very tactical alliance turned into a much more meaningful and beneficial experience than I had ever expected.

U.S and Chinese youth met with lead-negotiator Jonathan Pershing to voice our vision for greater cooperation between our two countries.

As a young person from the U.S, I am very concerned with our nation’s role in climate change, and in stalling progress on international cooperation. I am also committed to the notion that in order to make a difference as youth, we have to be blunt and we have to be specific. Specifically, in order to fulfill our mitigation responsibilities and make a real contribution to international progress in time for COP17 in South Africa, we need to demand that President Obama match China’s solar growth rate and double wind capacity in the next year.

After my first few meetings with Yingao and other Chinese youth delegates, I began to realize that American and Chinese youth have very different perspectives on our governments and the best way to inspire political progress. As I encountered these differences, I began to fear that my vision for this action would be compromised and so I asserted my own will as if it was inherently at odds with those of the Chinese youth. These meetings left me feeling somewhat discouraged and fatigued- and as if I was coming up against a wall.

Then things started to shift- the platform on which U.S and Chinese youth were interacting and collaborating was expanding under my feet- the action was just one, important but not self-sufficient, aspect of these efforts. Throughout the first week of the negotiations, I participated in many eye-opening experiences. I attended a workshop led by U.S and Chinese youth on our unique histories and educational backgrounds, our governments and their approach to tackling climate change, and a philosophical evaluation of our own cultural assumptions and patterns of behavior between people from such distinct nations.  Also, during an “open space” session at our “diplomacy dinner,” I conversed with Chinese youth on issues as diverse as the role of religion in China, national security in U.S and China energy policy, and the Kyoto Protocol “Common but Differentiated Responsibility” clause.

"I took a philosophical glimpse at the cultural assumptions and patterns of behavior between U.S and China"

The overarching message and importance of the U.S China shared action was as evident in the planning process as it was in the execution of the action. I felt firsthand what it feels like to negotiate one’s own values, principles, and objectives with those of someone from a very different background. I also began to realize the importance of engaging the other and of acting in the spirit of cooperation, rather than opposition. As I got to know Yingao and other Chinese youth as individuals, we started examining our cultural assumptions and explaining our histories and the reasoning behind our beliefs. Once we began to share these insights, it became clear that we did not inherently disagree- in fact, most times we could understand where the other was coming from. Our dialogue did not feel like a series of traded concessions- it felt like a collaboration.

I say all this because I firmly believe that in order for our countries to reach any agreement and enable international progress to solve the climate crisis, we need to learn, use, and listen to the language of shared understanding. It is my hope that U.S and Chinese negotiators examine their own assumed boundaries to cooperation and begin to find opportunities for mutual collaboration.

Stay tuned for Part 2, Taking Action

This article is cross-posted from Edmonton’s See magazine.

CANCUN, Mexico —  Canada stood out at the UN climate meetings last week for its lack of leadership. Canada received its fourth Fossil of the Day award on Friday Dec. 3 for trying to remove itself from any legally binding emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 agreement that is the world’s only binding treaty to reduce greenhouse gas pollution.  Canada’s position on Kyoto raises worries about the international community’s ability to reach an agreement in Cancun.

During a Thursday press briefing, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiania Figueres, informed journalists that Canada is trying to block an agreement on the Kyoto Protocol. I had met and spoken with our lead negotiator who explained that no one is trying to kill Kyoto. Was the executive secretary misinformed? Was our lead negotiator misleading us?

Continue reading ‘Another Fossil for Canucks’

Thousands of community activists around the world take action to promote Local Solutions to the Climate Crisis

The tone inside the conference center at the U.N. Climate Negotiations in Cancun has been a bit dismal this past week. Yet despite the reduced expectations inside, this morning the international peasant movement La Via Campesina gave us a new injection of hope and vision with a vibrant march of thousands of small farmers, Indigenous peoples and community activists through the streets in Mexico. It kicked off today’s international day of action – “1,000 Cancuns” – where grassroots organizations across the world demonstrated local resiliency and real solutions to the climate crisis. 30 coordinated events took place in the U.S. and Canada today, anchored by the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance.

Here in San Francisco, more than a dozen local community organizations joined forces to help convert a Mission District parking lot into a community garden and park with affordable housing units. Click here for photos.

“This action demonstrates a tangible solution to the climate crisis by promoting local food production, challenging our dependence on automobiles and strengthening bonds within the community,” explained Teresa Almaguer of People Organizing to Demand Environmental & Economic Rights (PODER) “The climate crisis requires community-based solutions and an end to corporate influence within the UN climate negotiations.” In addition to planting vegetables, participants enjoyed live music, theatrical performances and speakers all focusing on solutions to the climate crisis. A common theme at the event was increasing local food production in the fight against climate change, in contrast to the corporate-driven false solutions being put forth inside the U.N. negotiations.

“Industrial agriculture is one of the top three sources of greenhouse gas emissions,” said Michelle Mascarenhas-Swan of Movement Generation. “Agribusiness corporations profit from everything from fertilizer and pesticide sales to control of what goes onto supermarket shelves. The people are left paying the true costs in polluted water, depleted soil, diet-related diseases, and climate disruption. Meanwhile, U.S. agribusiness harms small farmers, farm workers and consumers – in the U.S. and around the world.” Continue reading ‘SF to Cancun: Social Movements Bring Hope as COP16 Falters’

Just announced – Don Blankenship is set to receive a $12 million severance package from Massey Energy. It must be very disappointing for Don, as last year he took home $18 million in salary and bonuses, the highest paid man in the coal business.

Here are my thoughts about how Massey could spend that money instead: Continue reading ’5 Better Ways Massey Could Spend Blankenship’s Golden Parachute’

This is crossposted from the UKYCC blog and is written by Isobel Tarr.

Why are negotiators wandering around lost at the UNFCCC this year? Could it be because their activities are split between the Moon Palace hotel, which is 10km away from the centre for side-events and NGO booths, which is another 40km from Cancún itself?

Perhaps. At least, this certainly doesn’t help matters.

Or could it be because they’ve forgotten where they came from, and what they have to do to get to their destination? Or worse… maybe they’re not even sure what their destination is anymore?

We thought this might be part of the problem. Maybe there were people who’d ditched the roadmap along the way and thrown everyone else off course. So we thought we’d take a stab at re-writing it, and ask if anyone knew if our new version of the map could help us get where we needed to be.

How do you begin to write a roadmap on solving climate change through the UNFCCC process?

It depends who you ask. Everyone has a different idea of where they want to be at the end of it. Maybe that’s why no-one can agree on which direction to turn in; they’re all reading off different maps, and some of them are reading the map upside down. But if you ask the youth constituency for their destination, the answer is clear and unanimous: Survival.

Directions to Survival

The Road Map to Survival was written in Bali in 2007. It’s pretty clear that you needed to pass through the Kyoto Protocol to reach Survival. Its not as if Kyoto and Survival are the same place, but there doesn’t seem to be another way of reaching Survival yet.

Unfortunately the most direct route to Kyoto had been closed off at Copenhagen in 2009 by a barricade of self-interest. This unforeseen obstacle seemed to have disorientated our errant negotiators, now drifting through the Moon Palace Hotel in Cancún, trying not to be put off by Japan and Canada yelling at them from the lay-by; “Forget the map! Who needs Kyoto? Its gonna drain our fuel-tanks to get there, and fossil fuels are precious. Lets just go for a swim in Playa del Carmen and maybe bury our heads in the sand while we’re at it.” Bless them, no wonder they’re confused.

Some of us wanted to understand what it felt like to be lost on the way to Kyoto. So we decided to wander around the Moon Palace Hotel, with the Survival Road Map in hand, looking lost. Here is a trypical response:

Negotiator: Excuse me, you look lost, may I help you?

Me: Oh yes, thank you very much. I’m, uh…[looking in all directions, squinting at the map and turning it around]… trying to find the way to the Kyoto Protocol. I was definitely there once, and now I… I just can’t seem to get back again. See, I have this Road Map, but I’m having a few problems, erm, navigating it…

Negotiator: I see…

Me: So, it would seem I’m in Cancún…

Negotiator: Mmm-hmm…

Me:… I just came back from Copenhagen, which turned out to be a dead end. But I’ve been told, and please tell me if you think this is correct, that I’ll have to carry on past these loop-holes -sorry- pot-holes, err and then cross the bridge of trust…

Negotiator: Hmm… I think you have to get round a whole lot of gigatonnes before you can get to the bridge of trust…

Me… Ah, is that so?

Negotiator: Mmm-hmm.

Me: Well thats going to be tricky. But I’ve been told that there’s some members of civil society along this road who can point me in the right direction, and stop me going down Self-Interest Avenue, which looks like it goes the wrong way, towards Denial River-

Negotiator: Yes there are definitely some people who have got stuck down there.

Me: Thats a shame because it eventually leads to Doom, as you can see.

Negotiator: Ah, yes thats a problem.

Me: So what would you suggest I do?

Negotiator: Well, if I were you, I’d just keep going straight. Stick to the map. Go through Compromise here-

Me: Compromise?

Negotiator: Yes [pointing at map] you see Compromise is directly on the way to Kyoto and Survival.

Me: Ah so it is. Will you be going that way too?

Negotiator: Yes I think we will. It seems like the best way. It is the only way. It may take longer than we thought but it’s the only way.

Some negotiators were very helpful, and seemed to know exactly where to go. Some didn’t want to look at the Survival Road Map which they’d agreed to follow only 3 years ago. And some couldn’t even agree amongst themselves about where they were:

Negotiator I: I don’t think we’re in Cancún anymore, I think we’re here, just a little further along the highway.

Negotiator II: No! We are not there either! We are still in Tianjin! We are exactly where we were in November! This map is wrong!

Negotiator III: No, I think we’re still in Copenhagen. We never really came back from Copenhagen, we’re stuck there.

Negotiator IV: No. We are definitely in Cancún, and there’s nothing we can do about that. We just have to move faster along the map. Step by step we will get there.

The following is a recent dispatch from the Climate Reality Tour, a movement-building cycling tour from the coalfields of West Virginia, now present at the UN Climate Talks in Cancún.

12/6/2010 – Seven years ago the world’s small farmer, labor, and environmental movements converged in Cancún to stop the World Trade Organization (WTO) from tightening its iron grip on people and our planet.

The stakes of those talks were so high in 2003 that one Korean farmer, Lee Kyung-Hae, a member of Via Campesina, climbed the police cordon and committed a ritual suicide. Expansion of the WTO agriculture agreement would have meant death for millions of farmers, he said. He made the ultimate sacrifice to express absolute dissent.

Yesterday, with the global spotlight back on Cancún for the United Nations climate negotiations, Via Campesina marched to commemorate Mr. Lee’s heroic act. They honored his sacrifice by continuing in the struggle, demanding an end to climate change attacking its root causes, and to halt implementation of false solutions.

It’s no coincidence that Via Campesina is again in Cancún in 2010. Their organizations are clamoring for the same solutions as seven years ago. Support for rural, autonomous, sustainable development, an end to megaprojects like dams and mines, food sovereignty, land, water and other resource rights for indigenous peoples and small farmers who feed and cool the planet.

We in the global north have some catching up to do.

Movements elsewhere in the world are rapidly organizing, and organizing around root causes. Free from the framework of infinite growth and expansion and as opposed to embarrassingly over compromised legislation in the U.S., the solutions they advocate might actually prevent catastrophic climate change. There’s a near universal understanding that we must tackle the interrelated climate, economic and food crises with holistic new approaches, or humanity just might not make it. There’s a demonstrated willingness to sacrifice not just minor creature comforts or the added monetary costs of sustainability premiums on consumer products, but to literally put their bodies on the line, to brave acts of violence and repression that we can hardly imagine. To really sacrifice, like Mr. Lee.

So let’s not forget there are many Cancúns. 2003. 2010. The Cancún of the tourists and official delegates, and that of the workers and peasants, and social movements present this week. The 1,000s of Cancúns that will rise up in cities worldwide tomorrow, Dec 7th.

Join us tomorrow in demanding Climate Justice, NOW! The spirit of Mr. Lee and countless others will be with you, wherever you may be.

A wave of facepalms swept across Salt Lake City yesterday morning as word got out that the community, which is still recovering from a large oil spill in June, now had another one on its hands.

From the same company. In pretty much the same place. I ain’t making this up.

SLC Mayor Becker "We cannot trust Chevron"

Just under six months ago, Chevron squirted 33,000 gallons of its crude into a pristine creek above the city. The spill washed downstream to a large recreation pond in Salt Lake’s version of “Central Park;” then into the Jordan River and finally into a Great Salt Lake wildlife area. It’s still a disaster; the pond remains closed, and other cleanup and monitoring is ongoing.

Yesterday’s spill is estimated at around 100 barrels [UPDATE: Chevron has adjusted the estimate just a little bit: "up to 500 barrels"] and came within 50 feet of reaching the same creek. This happened only 500 feet from the location of the previous breach, and for different reasons, which remain unclear at this time. From what I’ve been able to piece together, the cause was something like…criminal neglect. [Still true 4 days later]

After I heard the news, I put some ice on my forehead, prepared some maps and rushed to a press conference at SLC Mayor Ralph Becker’s office. I didn’t know what to expect from the Mayor–sympathy for Chevron or something else–because just weeks ago I caught sight of a picture of Ralph smiling with other local officials and Chevron representatives at the dedication of the “Chevron Mile” along the Jordan River — the same river the corporation had befouled just two paragraphs ago.

Becker came into the room with a stern look, sat down, and made his position clear:

Continue reading ‘Could the latest Chevron spill in Salt Lake City shut the pipeline down permanently?’

Cross-posted from Corporate Knights

The Canadian Government has been aiming to lead the charge on government accountability since the day they entered office.  However, when it comes to accountability of climate change actions, their stance remains unclear.

The story begins with the usual suspect: the United States. The US is insisting that they will not be a part of any global climate change agreement unless there is some level of transparency and review of emission reductions from big polluters - such as China and India. And rumours have it that countries such as Canada, Japan, Russia and Australia are apt to follow suite.

The flip side of the coin is that China will not move on transparency (measuring and reporting its emissions) until the United States proves that it is serious about cutting emissions. There are a number of proposals on the table right now from various countries on how to deal with this disagreement. Continue reading ‘Canada’s Chance to Lead’

By Daniel Goldfarb, Published by Americans for Energy Leadership

On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that hedge funds are increasing short selling in U.S. renewable energy stocks to an annual high as firms like Goldman Sachs trim their clean-tech positions. These steps have already damaged the U.S. wind industry, and hedge funds are rallying against First Solar, Tesla Motors, and other firms, potentially endangering a strategic national industry and thousands of American jobs.

As we’ve previously reported, support for the U.S. clean energy industry is teetering on the edge of a federal funding cliff as stimulus investments dry up.  Unfortunately, that cliff just became substantially steeper.  A lack of public support is sending ripples through the financial world, magnifying the impact of a lack of action in Washington as major financial institutions hedge against the predicted fall:

“In the run-up to this week’s global climate talks in Mexico, short sellers targeted makers of wind turbines, solar panels and electric cars whose sales also were undermined by cash-strapped European governments cutting subsidies. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and BlackRock Group trimmed long positions in renewable-energy shares in the third quarter, filings show.

…“We are just coming off a period of strong fundamental performance and we expect demand to weaken sharply,” Robert Clover, global head of clean power research at HSBC Plc in London, said in an interview. Clover forecast that global panel demand will drop 50 percent in the first quarter of next year from the previous three months.

Continue reading ‘U.S. Cleantech Industry Endangered as Wall Street Sells Short’