The United Nations climate change conference is now underway in Bali, Indonesia. We, the Australian youth need 60 seconds of your time to help keep the Pacific Islands on the map.

We have met with many Pacific Islanders over the week and their emotional pleas make the urgency of the situation clear. Small island nations are already suffering the impacts of climate change, with sea level rise innundating countries like Kiritbati, which are a maximum of two metres above sea level. It is these countries that have contributed the least to climate change, yet are suffering the worst effects.

We can secure the Pacific Islands a place on the map if we look to the future now.

Australia needs to make deep cuts in its emissions and to support its neighbors.

Here’s what we want you to do:

Email us a simple message of support for the Pacific Islander people to australianyouthdelegation@gmail.com or join our Facebook group ‘Keep the Pacific Islands on the map’ and leave a wall post. The Australian Youth Delegation here in Bali will be presenting these messages of support to a group of Pacific Islanders here in Bali on WEDNESDAY 12 ^th December.

If we get over 2000 messages we will present them to the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd; we will call for deep cuts in Australia’s emissions.

This is a great way to show your support for action on climate change and for climate justice. Please email your letters to us NOW!

Thanks,

Australian Youth in Bali (www.youthclimatecoalition.org)

Decisions, decisions, decisions! – as an Australian Youth Delegate, decisions play an integral part in our functioning – as opportunities arise, equally as many decisions must be made. Who will present when, who will meet who, who will do what?

Today, an AYD verdict allowed me the opportunity to participate in a meeting with the COP13 UNFCCC President – Mr Witoelar, the purpose for which was unsure. Delegates from 5 regions discussed our meeting tactics and formulated some form of plan for our 15 minute contact with this influential figurehead!

Expecting a private conversation with the president where we could present our views as representatives of youth and generally engage in an important dialogue, the meeting turned out to be more of a publicity stunt for the president who smiled agreeably for the cameras and said uncontroversial statements about the need for “the world to do more.”

Although the meeting was staged more so as a photo-opp than anything with real bite, it was a significant milestone to be allowed to meet with him and important in the promotion of the International Youth Climate Network, a global youth partnership in conception at COP13.

Of late, there has been a feeling of intense frustration within the youth caucus – while the fate of our world hangs on the line, negotiators and decision makers seem intent on creating innumerable obstacles to prevent progress in the negotiations.

Among others creating controversy, Japan threw a spanner [editor's note: that's a wrench for you yanks!] in the works of immense proportions when it announced that we must “move beyond Kyoto”, that is – to throw in the towel and take even bigger backward steps from saving our planet.

Amongst this bureaucracy, the youth have been attempting to maintain our hope and sense of empowerment.

Tonight’s Youth Side Event was our much-needed elixir. In packed house, youth delegates from Japan, Australia, Canada, the US and Indonesia showcased the incredible things youth are achieving against institutional constraints, closed doors and apathy, day in, day out, all around the world.

Personally, the event inspired hope that indeed we are not lost in this fight. As young people, carrying neither historical baggage, nor vested interests in anything other than our future, we present a unified front that is nothing less than a force to be reckoned with.

The pace of change at COP13 is extraordinary – an hour passes by and you could be looking at a very different future. Tonight’s youth event was an hour well spent and it is hours like this are that will get us through the frustration to come, as we fight for our fate.

Day 1 of the Bali conference was eventful, confusing, exciting, frustrating and a whole lot of other emotions rolled into one. While we all got lost finding where we were supposed to go for government delegation meetings, youth caucus meetings and plenaries, we all managed to eventually get ourselves into gear and learn a lot.

A major talking point of the day was Australia’s speech to the COP in which they announced that they will ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which was met with much applause.

Australia ’s recent Federal election has been widely reported around the globe, from Uganda to Tehran, from Brussels to New York, as the ‘Climate Change Election’.

This is definitely the perception here at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali where the result has breathed new life into the negotiations. When Australia announced in the opening Plenary that it would immediately ratify the Kyoto Protocol the room went wild – well as wild as diplomats, usually the constrained type, can be – there was cheering, whistling and a standing ovation. It has raised hopes around the world that Australia will move from laggard to leader.

As a country that is already suffering severe climate change impacts, with a Prime Minister that has a clear mandate from the people to take concerted immediate action to solve the climate crisis, Australia is well placed to drive international negotiations to build upon and strengthen the Kyoto Protocol.

However, ratification of the Protocol is merely a first step. Australia and the global community must go much further if we are to avert climate disaster. The urgency in which world leaders develop and implement a global solution must reflect the urgency of the problem.

We are currently experiencing the impacts of 0.7 degrees global warming. In the last few years we have seen many “worst ever” events – the worst drought in Australia in a 1000 years, in North Western America in 500 years and in the Amazon rainforest in a 100 years, the most damaging and costly hurricane of all time, hurricane Katrina, the worst ever forest fires in California, Australia, Greece, Portugal and Russia, the worst heat wave ever in Europe killing 35,000 people, and the worst flooding in living memory in South East Asia in 2006 and South Asia and Britain in 2007. Many people living on small islands must consider evacuation as their homes begin to be submerged by rising sea levels. This is the first time Eskimos have witnessed polar bears drown as they search farther and farther for food in the rapidly melting Artic.

Each day climate change has dangerous impacts right across the world. Each day we continue to pump more and more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Each day developing and implementing a global solution to the climate crisis becomes more and more urgent.

The Bali Conference represents a unique opportunity for the Australian government to reinvent itself. Having set a positive tone at the beginning of the conference, Australia can use the momentum to push for a solution that will transform the global economy and prevent catastrophic climate change. To do otherwise would be to undermine the mandate bestowed upon the newly-elected government by the Australian people. I commend Prime Minister Rudd on his first act as Prime Minister, ratification, and look forward to witnessing strong, positive climate announcements when he arrives in Bali.

Uh-oh. This is definitely not a good sign!

Check out this video for some remarks he made at a press conference a few hours later:

My basic objection to his statements is thus: Fossil fuels have a lot of ‘C’ in them. When you burn them in ‘O2’, you end up with CO2. CO2 causes climate change. It’s a simple physical fact, and you can’t negotiate with the laws of physics.

If you dig up the carbon and burn it, the CO2 heats our atmosphere, acidifies our oceans, or corrodes our land.

Perhaps Mr de Boer has had one too many conversations with the big oil producers, like OPEC and Russia.

I call on Mr de Boer to recognise the clear vested interests of these countries, and instead to listen to the youth of the world, who come with no historical baggage and who have no vested interests other than a safe and healthy future.

Given that burning fossil fuels causes climate change, which threatens that safe future, global youth are clearly saying that fossil fuels are NOT here to stay. With all due respect, Yvo de Boer is wrong on that front.

‘Carbon Capture and Storage’ (CCS), or ‘Geosequestration’, will not solve the problem. Just like there is not enough room in our atmosphere to store the carbon dioxide that we create, there is not enough room under the earth’s crust. (For a full discussion see this post).

We aren’t asking that the fossil industry ends overnight, but it must be phased out, and the UNFCCC secretariat must acknowledge that. My personal conviction is that ‘cleaner’ fossil fuel technologies like efficiency and Geosequestration, while an important step in the transition away from
fossil fuels, must not be used as an excuse to prolong fossil fuel use.

What is more, the cost of ‘cleaning up’ the fossil industries must be borne by private investment from the fossil industries themselves – they have significant profits under their belt, and can certainly afford to clean up their act.

The world’s public investment should not subsidise these industries further, but instead be directed into long-term renewable solutions – wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, and end-use energy efficiency.
To stop climate change, fossil fuels must be phased out and it’s time that our world leaders acknowledged that openly. We can’t solve climate change otherwise.

We must draw a line in the sand, a threshold of global temperature increase that we should not cross. We must set a target in global emission reductions that gives us the best chance of averting climate disaster. While there is no global consensus on what this should be, it would be prudent to err on the side of caution and choose a stringent target that minimizes the risk of the worst climate impacts.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change puts this threshold at two degrees global warming. It is anticipated that this temperature increase would have catastrophic impacts on natural systems that support human life. To have a reasonable chance of preventing warming of 2 degrees requires global emissions to peak in 2015 and then be reduced globally by 50-80% by 2050.

Given Australia’s emissions are four times the global average, Australia will have to reduce its emissions more significantly, by a minimum of 30% 2020 and 80% 2050. However, recent evidence suggests that this is too conservative. James Hanson, a NASA Scientist, has demonstrated that warming above 1.5 -1.7 degrees is likely to cause the melting of both the West Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets. If these enormous blocks of ice melt, global sea level would rise by 25metres, flooding major cities and river deltas – the world would be a very different place. To prevent this warming will require reductions of at least 100% by 2030.

If we are to prevent catastrophic changes to the earth’s climate systems we need targets based on what the science says is necessary for a safe future.

Today was our first taste of life as a youth delegate at the UNFCCC COP, as we, along with some of our new friends – the Canadian Youth Delegation, hosted the International Youth Conference at Harris Resort in Kuta. We met the 70 delegates brought together from Indonesia, the US (a huge contingent), Japan, the Philippines, Denmark, Germany, Canada (another huge contingent) and Singapore. The conference vibe was incredibly positive and energising.

Along with youth from many other countries, we have set up various ‘working groups’ to follow up different aspects of the conference, such as media, creative actions, policy, international networking, etc.
We are incredibly excited and hopeful about our first day at the UNFCCC meeting on Monday – we don’t know what’s in store but it will sure be interesting!

Follow our delegation at: www.baliblog.org