Cross-posted from Project Survival Media

On November 28, world leaders descended upon Durban, South Africa for the seventeenth annual UN climate negotiations. That night, a torrential downpour cost at least ten people their lives. Several townships around Durban were overwhelmed by flash floods, as streams swelled their banks and people were swept out of their homes by the rising water. Project Survival Media went to visit KwaMashu, one of these provinces, to find out how local residents are coping.

In a word, they aren’t. The flood and its survivors are being given almost no attention by the UN and delegates at the conference, and the people have received next to no assistance from the municipal government.

Now, in the final hours of negotiations, as COP17 draws to a close, it is unlikely that any sort of climate treaty will be agreed upon that meets the needs of the most impacted. In addition, it remains to be seen whether the Green Climate Fund, the singular high hope of many most impacted countries in desperate need of funding for adaptation measures, will be approved and launched.

Despite this incredible disappointment, many youth, NGO’s, and members of civil society are dedicated to offering what relief they can – and have launched a campaign facilitated through 350.org, with all funds going directly to the KwaMashu community. They hope to show the victims of the flash floods that despite the appearance of being ignored, there are people at these negotiations who truly understand that for many, climate change means survival or death.

This is also, as it happens, a unique opportunity to shine a light on developed countries’ inaction on pledging tangible resources for immediate adaptation, and that the United States and Saudi Arabia are holding up the one measure with potential to truly help peoples most impacted the world over (The Green Climate Fund).

As the global climate continues to warm, sudden, heavy downpours are expected to increase across South Africa, adding to the growing global tally of climate casualties. This isn’t the first not-so-funny coincidence of a climate-related “natural” disaster striking during a climate conference, and it certainly won’t be the last.

Abigail Borah calls out Congress and the Obama Administration's inaction at the UN climate talks in South Africa before being removed by security. credit: Katherine Rainone, SustainUS

Durban, South Africa – After nearly two weeks of stalled progress by the United States at the international climate talks, U.S. youth spoke out for a real, science-based climate treaty.  Abigail Borah, a New Jersey resident, interrupted the start of lead U.S. negotiator Todd Stern’s speech to call out members of Congress for impeding global climate progress, delivering a passionate call for an urgent path towards a fair and binding climate treaty. Stern was about to speak to international ministers and high-level negotiators at the closing plenary of the Durban climate change negotiations. Borah was ejected from the talks shortly following her speech.

Borah, a student at Middlebury College, spoke for U.S. negotiators because “they cannot speak on behalf of the United States of America”, highlighting that “the obstructionist Congress has shackled a just agreement and delayed ambition for far too long.” Her delivery was followed by applause from the entire plenary of leaders from around the world.

Since before the climate talks, the United States, blocked by a Congress hostile to climate action, has held the position of holding off on urgent pollution reductions targets until the year 2020. Studies from the International Energy Agency, numerous American scientists, and countless other peer-reviewed scientific papers show that waiting until 2020 to begin aggressive emissions reduction would cause irreversible climate change, including more severe tropical storms, worsening droughts, and devastation affecting communities and businesses across America.  Nevertheless, the United States has held strong to its woefully inadequate and voluntary commitments made in the Copenhagen Accord in 2009 and the Cancun Agreement in 2010.

“2020 is too late to wait,” urged Borah. “We need an urgent path towards a fair, ambitious, and legally binding treaty.”

The U.S. continues to negotiate on time borrowed from future generations, and with every step of inaction forces young people to suffer the quickly worsening climate challenges that previous generations have been unable and unwilling to address.

Photos are available here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sustainus

Video here:

http://youtu.be/XDQxg7F2j1s

And check out – U.S. Youth Say “2020: It’s too late to wait”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQVpZQ1UlKw

Full text of Abigail’s speech:

I am speaking on behalf of the United States of America because my negotiators cannot.  The obstructionist Congress has shackled justice and delayed ambition for far too long.  I am scared for my future.  2020 is too late to wait.  We need an urgent path to a fair ambitious and legally binding treaty.

you must take responsibility to act now, or you will threaten the lives of youth and the world’s most vulnerable.

You must set aside partisan politics and let science dictate decisions.  You must pledge ambitious targets to lower emissions not expectations.  Citizens across the world are being held hostage by stillborn negotiations.

We need leaders who will commit to real change, not empty rhetoric.  Keep your promises. Keep our hope alive. 2020 is too late to wait.

Just in case our 5 years of swarming state capitals decked out in green hard hats, running campaigns calling for more jobs in clean energy, and vowing to only vote for candidates who support renewable energy companies hasn’t made it clear — youth really want more green jobs.

While young people have been some of the biggest advocates for green jobs, no one has really tried to answer the question of whether green jobs will be youth jobs? Will more green jobs mean more jobs for youth, or will young people miss out on the very green jobs we’ve worked so hard to create?

So far, the answer has been “we don’t know.” That’s because, despite all of the green jobs studies that have been done, none of them has really looked at the different kinds of people who actually get green jobs (one exception is for income and education level). This is especially true across different races, ethnicities, genders, and, yeah, ages. So, we set out to change that, writing the first study we know of to look at youth access to green jobs, and also the first written by youth.

Building on Kyle’s earlier research on green jobs demographics, we looked at the industries where the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (which finally has the resources to take green jobs seriously) says the most green jobs companies are, and compared that to data on the industries most young people work in. You can see the full results in our paper, but they’re not great:

Basically, industries with the most green jobs, like construction (doing energy efficient building retrofits, for example), don’t employ young people who have jobs (here BLS defines youth as ages 18-24). And the industries that do employ a lot of young people, like retail (and every young person’s favorite job, food service!), have some of the lowest rates of green jobs companies, less than a percent of all green jobs firms. Considering that youth unemployment is even higher than average unemployment, that’s pretty crappy news for all those youth looking to make a difference through a steady job.

To be fair, the data we have only tells us how many green jobs companies there are, not how many actual jobs there are (BLS is surveying total numbers of jobs now, hoping to finish by 2012), and the numbers probably look a little better for youth aged 25-29.

Does that mean more green jobs won’t create jobs for youth? No.

For one thing, tons of studies suggest that investments and policies that support renewable energy, energy efficiency, and solutions to climate change create more jobs overall, compared to equivalent support for fossil fuels and fossil fuel jobs. Just having more jobs total should mean at least some extra jobs for youth, even if most of those green jobs go to older workers. Youth are also not heavily employed in fossil fuel and mining sectors, meaning we will be less hurt by these shifts in investments.

For another, just having more older workers with green jobs (when they used to be unemployed) will create some jobs for youth. That’s because people who are getting paid, when they used to be out of work, also start spending money when they couldn’t before. And they spend that money at places like clothing stores and restaurants — places that employ a lot of young people — and those places start hiring more workers as their business picks up (these are called either indirect or induced jobs). These might not be green jobs directly, and they may not pay the kinds of wages youth need to prosper, but they’re at least an improvement over no job.

But lastly, and most importantly, pushing for green jobs today will mean more green jobs tomorrow. Even if our generation isn’t claiming the majority of green jobs today, you can bet we will soon, as we become the biggest generation in the workforce, becomes innovators helping to solve our energy and climate crises, and move into the age range with the most green employment.

Even putting aside other benefits, like fighting climate change and helping other people find decent work, that’s reason enough for youth to fight for more green jobs.

Michael Davidson was a SustainUS youth delegate to the Cancun climate negotiations in December 2010. He is the China Climate Fellow at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, DC, where he examines the dynamic U.S.-China energy and environment relationship and supports NRDC’s Earth Summit 2012 campaign. Previously, he was a Fulbright Fellow in Beijing and holds degrees in Physics and Japanese Studies from Case Western Reserve University.

The study — “Green Jobs for Youth: A Preliminary Analysis of Youth in the Green Economy” — is our own work and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or endorsements of the places we work for.

One year from this week, government leaders, civil society members and representatives of the business community will meet in Rio de Janeiro to discuss the future of the planet. The Earth Summit (also called Rio+20 after the first such global event in 1992) can help lead to a more prosperous world that utilizes natural resources more efficiently and responds to the needs of the most impacted communities of environmental degradation. But only if youth help write the story, and here’s why.

Rio 1992 was a watershed moment for the global environmental conscience. Treaties were signed, commissions created, and action plans drafted. Yet one of the most memorable speeches from the two-week conference was by a 12-year old girl (here’s what she’s doing now).

Now, a generation later, my generation is faced with two seemingly insurmountable challenges: the world is changing at a rate never before seen, and the current governance structures are insufficient to meet even the environmental problems of the 1970s.

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Trustee and former United Nations Development Programme head Gus Speth writes of his “generation of great talkers” in Global Environmental Challenges: “For the most part, we have analyzed, debated, discussed, and negotiated these issues endlessly…On action, however, we have fallen far short…The threatening global trends highlighted a quarter-century ago continue to this day.”

That’s why we’re looking for something different this time around. NRDC is inaugurating our Race to Rio campaign with an initial set of Earth Summit deliverables we would like to see heads of state, business executives and civil society leaders agree to (see more details and climate/energy asks). The criteria are simple, they must be specific and short-term; involve commitments to work together; and have robust monitoring and reporting provisions.

Actions and accountability

Fortunately, as I reported back from the last preparatory meeting, civil society is already focusing on the dual challenges of actions and accountability. This was reflected in submissions (pdf) to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability as well as recent calls for greater ambition.

We as civil society must channel this energy, however, neither wasting precious time pointing fingers at every unfulfilled promise of the last forty years nor demanding that our leaders commit to lofty ideals long after they will be out of office. NRDC President Frances Beinecke thinks we can learn from the Clinton Global Initiative, which has a unique track record for generating real actions on the ground.

As we contemplate what needs to be done in the next five to ten years, though, be sure: from now until Rio 2012 is the most important year. I uncovered a public service announcement from the run up to Rio 1992 calling on every American to send a telegram to the White House asking the U.S. to lead. We need the same passion and pragmatism guiding us toward Rio in 2012.

An open challenge to youth

Our new abilities to tear down planetary boundaries are only surpassed by our tools to tear down cultural and geographic boundaries.

It’s interesting to look at what’s happened in my generation – the generation of billions: we’ve added 1.3 billion new people to the planet (a billion in our cities), two billion Internet users, five billion mobile phone subscriptions, and brought billions out of the worst kind of poverty.

We know that a successful Earth Summit must engage all strata of society, and thankfully we are beyond telegrams and faxes. But, how do we bring the myriad new media tools to bear on the problem of accountability and actions? This is an open challenge for youth to help shape the debate using a new, more effective language. This week, we raise awareness through posts on #earthsummit and #rioplus20, but we need to think beyond.

Some examples already exist. Earth Day Network’s Billion Acts of Green campaign encourages all of us to share our local actions toward sustainability. The European Environmental Agency’s iEnviroWatch app gives local environmental conditions and wants to invite users to submit content. Various youth rapid response networks at UN climate negotiations provide instant accountability to constituents back home.

And youth from Canada to the UK are coming up with creative ways to engage.

These and many more need to be scaled up by Rio next year, because it is obvious to UN leaders that the current way of doing things will not survive another twenty years. Our world cannot wait for a Rio+40 to curb climate change, repopulate the oceans and restore lost forests.

We need to blaze a path forward at the same time we ask our leaders to lead.

RIO+20 Earth Summit: Potential Deliverables (pdf)

Michael Davidson was a SustainUS youth delegate to the Cancun climate negotiations in December 2010. He is the China Climate Fellow at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, DC, where he examines the dynamic U.S.-China energy and environment relationship and supports NRDC’s Earth Summit 2012 campaign. Previously, he was a Fulbright Fellow in Beijing and holds degrees in Physics and Japanese Studies from Case Western Reserve University.

• tired of reading articles like this about what’s going to be hot in 2011 (here’s hoping “the planet” doesn’t make the list)
• busy breaking those New Year’s resolutions you made

I hope we can all resolve (and actually do it) to make one thing hot in 2011 – calling that icky stuff pouring out of our economy “pollution” instead of “emissions”.

Like “greenhouse gas pollution” instead of “greenhouse gas emissions”, “carbon pollution” instead of “carbon emissions”, etc.

Without making this a big post about messaging and why it matters, I think it’s pretty easy to get that “emissions” sounds neutral or at worst just a little bad, like politely talking about someone’s fart, and “pollution”, well, tells it like it is.

Unfortunately, as the charts below show (make them yourself at Google Fight. Other variations, such as “GHG pollution”, look similarly lopsided.), most people haven’t gotten the message. IGHIH isn’t even doing as well as it could (see for yourself).

Climate terms that use "emissions" are way more common than terms using "pollution", and that's a problem for communicating how serious climate change is. Images courtesy googlefight.com

Not that we’re alone: Grist Magazine – here, here; Environmental Protection Agency* – here & here; White House – here & here. “Pollution” loses in every one. And if you don’t trust Google Fight’s count, just use those website’s own search engines and page through the results — you’ll get a similar imbalance. If people who care about stopping climate change can’t even call it pollution, why would anyone else, and why would we be surprised if people aren’t that worried?

Of course, these are just all results, not arranged by date. We can’t tell if people are using “pollution” more now than a few years ago. There a few encouraging signs this might be true. Harry Reid finally got it (but way too late) in last year’s climate legislation push. The EPA talked about pollution over and over in its release about new GHG regulations starting this year (but chose to talk about “emitters” instead of “polluters”). Wikipedia authors…not so much.

It’s not about objectivity

Some people might argue that emissions is a neutral term, and that it’s more appropriate for the government, scientists, and the media to talk about impartial emissions instead of “suggestive” term like pollution. But try searching for “water pollution” or “air pollution” from Reuters, the Associated Press, Google Scholar, or the EPA’s website, and you’ll see no one has any trouble talking about lots of other harmful kinds of “emissions” as pollution. And, fact, climate change is killing people. Sounds like pollution to me. Some of these places have long ago started talking about climate-related emissions as pollution, but the skew is still there.

So let’s resolve, in 2011 (and forever):

I will use “pollution” when I talk/write/think about climate change, not “emissions”.

Danger – words without actions

Calling things what they are is important, but let’s not forget that we also need to actually do stuff to make change.

* Disclaimer – I work for the federal government right now. This is a personal post, not the gov’s.

<cross-posted on SustainUS’s Agents of Change blog and The Climate Community

The United States earned the 1st Fossil of the Day Award here at the  United Nations climate negotiations in Bonn. Nearly a week had passed where no country had acted badly enough in the negotiations to deserve a shameful Fossil, until the U.S.’s nomination.

The U.S. grabbed the title for blocking a discussion on greenhouse gas mitigation actions. The discussion would have helped build consensus on post-2012 actions to stop greenhouse gas pollution. Lack of a clean energy and climate law is pushing the U.S. to block an international discussion on future climate agreements (sound familiar?).

The discussion had been proposed by the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). Many AOSIS countries are under extreme threat from rising sea levels and other worsening climate impacts. They also have some of the least capacity to deal with these impacts, and have contributed to climate change pollution the least of most nations.

The Fossil of the Day awards, run by the Climate Action Network (CAN), were created to highlight the countries doing the most to block progress in the United Nations negotiations.

Official press release from CAN:

FOSSIL OF THE DAY AWARDS

Bonn, Germany, June 5, 2010

The Climate Action Network (CAN), a coalition of over 500 NGOs worldwide, gives out “Fossil of the Day” awards to the countries who perform the worst during the past day’s negotiations at the UN climate change conference.

The award given out on June 5, 2010 in Bonn, Germany was:

The United States of America was awarded First Place. The U.S. earns the Fossil of the Day for blocking the common space discussion on mitigation in the Ad Hoc Working Group for Long-term Cooperative Action yesterday. Failing to pass a strong climate and energy bill is keeping them from participating in cross-cutting discussions, like the one AOSIS proposed, to build a post-2010 agreement to reduce global warming emissions.

The Fossil-of-the-day awards were first presented at the climate talks in 1999, also in Bonn, initiated by the German NGO Forum.

During United Nations climate change negotiations (www.unfccc.int), members of the Climate Action Network (CAN), a worldwide network of over 500 non-government organisations, vote for countries judged to have done their ‘best’ to block progress in the negotiations in the last days of talks.

www.climatenetwork.org

Applications are now available for SustainUS’s Agents of Change delegation to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations in Cancun, Mexico, November 29-December 10.

Applicants must be 18-26 years old at the start of the negotiations, and must be either U.S. citizens or permanent residents, or have been studying or working in the United States for at least six months at the time of application.

Selected applicants will join a diverse delegation of youth, including those both familiar with and new to the youth climate movement; from across the United States and beyond; including young scientists and engineers, policy specialists, grassroots activists, media and communications specialists; students, young professionals, and community volunteers; and more. We have limited, need-based scholarship money for youth from climate change-impacted communities (requires separate application, see link below).

Full delegation details and application materials are available at http://www.sustainus.org/COP16

Applications are due by 5 p.m. EDT on June 4th to agents@sustainus.org

The World Bank wants your opinion. No, seriously.

On February 9th, I attended a civil society consultation with representatives of the Bank’s social development and environment divisions, hosted in the middle of the United Nations Commission for Social Development. The Bank is preparing only its 2nd ever Environment Strategy, and is accepting input from pretty much any organization that either fills out their online form or attends one of their consultation meetings held throughout the world.

The first phase of consultations ends February 15, but you can keep making submissions and comments through August 15, both on big picture stuff like funding fossil fuel projects and details like economic modeling and surveying methodology.

It’s Getting Hot In Here bloggers and commenters have had a few things to say about the Bank recently, so here’s your chance to tell them directly.

Learn more about the consultations: wwwr.worldbank.org/environmentconsultations

Or jump straight to the submission form.

Amtrak's Acela High Speed Train photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons

The U.S. youth climate movement has rightfully been dissecting Obama’s State of the Union speech and its aftermath – the good, the bad, the really? – and taking action of our own.

But this week, Obama did more than just talk, he acted, putting a big down payment on a high speed rail network that will cut pollution, save energy, and provide good jobs in the clean energy economy.

On Thursday, President Obama and U.S. Transportation Secretary (and former Illinois Republican congressman) Ray LaHood announced $8 billion in economic recovery money dedicated to building high speed rail and otherwise improving rail transportation across much of the country.

That’s good for cutting climate change and improving air quality, since rail transportation is more energy efficient and overall less polluting than cars or planes. That’s assuming people actually use it, though, and long travel times compared to flying have hurt Amtrak’s public acceptance, even as it’s fastest routes grew their ridership (page 6).

It’s good for creating American manufacturing and other blue collar jobs, too. The administration estimates it will add and protect tens of thousands by the time the money is fully spent.

It’s also a big change from the last administration. In 2007, when the independent, congressionally mandated National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission released its final report on funding and improving our road and rails, recommending $7-$9 billion per year in passenger rail investments (sound like a familiar number?), then-Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters was one of only three commissioners to object (page 65) to passenger rail funding, and President Bush showed little interest in the issue.

Photo courtesy of 350.org (and inspiring people in London, Sydney, and Copenhagen)

I won’t even try to sum up the awesomeness that was the October 24th International Day of Climate Action. Instead, I’m thinking about how this fits into the even bigger awesomeness that is the international youth climate movement:

International Day of Climate Action – Yesterday was the largest day of distributed political activism ever. It was temporarily the top news story globally. While people of all ages can celebrate in making this day happen, youth played a huge role in creating and participating in many of the actions, in spreading the popularity of the day of action, and working behind the scenes (or more likely in the middle of them) as members of the 350.org staff.

The YOUNGOs – International youth have recently become a recognized constituency within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations. Called the YOUNGOs (youth nongovernmental organzations), they now have the same rights, privileges, responsibilities, and representation as businesses, indigenous peoples, or environmental organizations. That couldn’t have happened until youth had developed the size, institutional and policy knowledge, and organizational capacity to handle such a full-contact struggle for a safe, stable future.

Since the first explosion of youth participation in the climate negotiations in December 2005 in Montreal, to the beginnings of an organized, year-round youth presence after the December 2007 negotiations in Bali, we now have a coordinated, lasting, increasingly (but not perfectly) inclusive and diverse coalition of young people from all over the world participating in the climate negotiations year-round, and actually having an impact with our coalition-building, heartbreaking and eye-catching demonstrations, thoughtful policy submissions, and creative and honest speeches.

Global Power Shifts – What only two years ago was a cool, inventive meeting of mostly United States youth climate leaders in 2007 is growing into an international phenomenon. This year saw Power Shift: The Sequel (otherwise known as Power Shift 2009…), Power Shift Australia, Power Shift UK, Power Shift Canada, Power Shift Regional Summits in the U.S.A., and a host of other power(ful) youth climate summits all over the world, that, while maybe not carrying the Power Shift name, definitely continued its legacy of giving youth the tools and energy to remake their world, cleaner and safer. Transformative meetings, like the Indian Youth Climate Network’s Badlaav, shouldn’t have to call themselves by the Power Shift name, but they are empowering youth just the same.

The Next Bold Move – Despite all of this exciting progress, let’s not kid ourselves that we’ve accomplished all we need to. The planet is still warming up. And so are we. The International Day of Action might just have been the next in a continuing series of coordinated youth actions. Earlier this year, international youth staged a coordinated embassy lobbying campaign in almost a dozen cities. Having youth from a bunch of different countries show up at your country’s consulate door to talk about climate change is uncommon enough. Seeing us show up at them in multiple countries in the same week really got their attention.

So what’s next?! What about multiple, coordinated Power Shifts all happening at the same time worldwide? This already sort of happened October 9-11, when UK Power Shift, Power Shift Indiana, and Power Shift Michigan all held summits. Imagine that, but bigger and more diverse, virtually linking summit after summit together, youth literally seeing each other learn the skills and build the passion needed to care for our world and each other. Imagine not just a coordinated embassy letter drop, but massive simultaneous lobbying of legislatures and elected leaders the world over. Imagine an endless string of Power Vote campaigns – election after election in country after country, the same clean energy message echoing planetwide. Imagine youth taking their organized constituency to every major international negotiation affecting our climate, our jobs, our development, our environment, our rights … affecting our very quality of life.

Imagine that, and you’ve just dreamed of change. And we’re making it happen.