It's Getting Hot In Here

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’

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’

Young Americans in Copenhagen press for energy action now

COPENHAGEN – On the first day of the critical week of United Nations climate negotiations, young elected officials in Copenhagen and in the United States called on President Obama and Congress to secure a strong agreement that will grow clean energy jobs and address climate change.

Five young elected officials presented the statement (printed below) to the United States delegation in Copenhagen on Monday in advance of President Obama’s address all UN delegates on Friday, December 18. “Our message to President Obama and Congress is simple,” said Andy Katz, Director of the East Bay Municipal Utility District in California, and the Chair of Sierra Club California. “Revitalize our economy with clean energy jobs. Young Americans have the most at stake – and the highest price – if we fail to solve the climate and clean energy crisis.”

The statement attracted support from over 95 young elected city council members, mayors, and state representatives from 30 states. “While the rest of the economy is struggling, clean energy jobs are a real bright spot,” said Rep. Jeremy Kalin (North Branch, MN), chair of CLEAN, the Coalition of Legislators for Energy Action Now working with the White House and the United States Senate.

Continue reading ‘Young Elected Officials Call for Obama to Secure Clean Energy Economy’

News from SustainUS Delegate Valida Prentice. What more appropriate time to celebrate her birthday in Copenhagen than Young and Future Generations Day?

Cross-posted from The Climateers, By Valida Prentice

Time is flying here in Copenhagen.  The question is, are we flying in a private jet or gracefully soaring like an eagle?  Are we headed towards an outcome in Copenhagen that will continue to support a dirty energy economy that pollutes greenhouse gases without thought of its grave impacts on the ecological systems and habitability of this earth or one that will give us, and future generations, a chance at a beautiful, sustainable future.

This pointed question is at the middle of today’s activities in the Bella Center. This year, global youth at the UNFCCC acquired a more formal status, that of a “constituency”.  Constituency status, initially just given to “BINGOs” (Business and Industry NGOs) and “ENGOs” (Environmental NGOs), allows NGOs falling under particular umbrellas to have greater access to the UNFCCC Secretariat by way of funneling shared issues and requests through one or two representatives or “focal points”.

credit: Robert van Warden

To celebrate the addition of YOUNGOs to the list of constituencies to the UNFCCC, today, December 10, we’re hosting Young and Future Generations Day in cooperation with the Secretariat.  We have 1,000 youth running around the convention center with bright orange t-shirts asking negotiators, NGO leaders and press, “how old will you be in 2050″ and demanding that negotiations “don’t bracket our future”.  We’re also handing out 1,000 orange scarves to our supporters in country delegations and leading international NGOs.

I’m currently sitting in a Side Event (where NGO observers have a chance to speak on various issues related to the COP-15 negotiations) presented by SustainUS on Youth Voices on REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation). The opportunity to hold events such as this forest side event with its quiet, academic tone is a necessary part of youth involvement at COP alongside our other actions.

Continue reading ‘December 10: Young and Future Generations Day’

Cross posted from The Climateers

As 27 of my fellow SustainUSers are in Copenhagen are attending plenary sessions and planning actions with international youth from around the world, I’m holding down the fort in Washington, DC by bridging the news from Denmark to actions at home.

A friend of mine remarked today that he thought grassroots organizing for Copenhagen was a lost cause because the real negotiating at COP15 and legislative change in the U.S. Senate happens behind closed doors between high-level decisionmakers and powerful lobbyists; that actions, petitions, and rallies are tiny blips on the political radar. And I suppose he has a point – the COP15 outcome depends highly upon decisions of key leaders, and the deep pocketbooks of special interest groups and corporations shout at higher decibels than hand-painted banners and street actions.

But he’s wrong to conclude that it’s a waste of our time. After a brief afternoon existential crisis of the importance of our collective work, I stopped to look around at all the inspiring work coming from delegates in Copenhagen and my friends all over the country. It’s easy to become apathetic or discouraged, but it takes a lot more to keep fighting the fight. Continue reading ‘The Youth is Starting to Change’