California youth are heading to Copenhagen to take part in UN Climate Negotiations as part of the global Youth Constituency. This blog is hosted by one of their number and is open to them all. Come read about us and our actions, or let me know if you have something to add!
Today is the last day of the conference. Though there are rumors that the conference may last into the weekend for a binding agreement to be made. This however, is very concerning to me. Obama arrived this morning and gave a speech in the Bella Center around 1:00Pm.
The speech was the same rhetoric that the united States has been using for Climate Change. According to his speech the U.S. will cut down carbon dioxide emissions 17% by 2020 based on the 2005 index. This seems like a great amount, but in reality is very poor. Every other country will be using the 1990 index for cutting carbon dioxide. Only the United States has decided to use 2005 standards. This is concerning because it does not standardize the baseline, and also allows the United States to cut less carbon dioxide then other countries. 15% in 2005 standards is equivalent to less in 1990 levels. Obama delivered a speech that was sub-par. Unfortunately, these cuts will not be enough. According to 350.org the current agreement will skyrocket emissions up to 770 parts per million of CO2, nearly doubling the scientifically proven amount of CO2 acceptable for a habitable Earth. This is surely inadequate for the livelihood of the planet. Obama also talked about the potential 10 billion dollars the U.S. will give less developed countries. This is on the condition that other developed countries also contribute to a pot of money and become "transparent" in their decision making processes.
Hopefully the conference will last into the weekend because an agreement has not been made. We need to cut emissions and standardize the way we account for the CO2 reductions. By the end of the weekend, maybe the politicians from around the world will have miraculously come to a binding, ambitious, and fair agreement.
Due to the expected chaos of yesterday, I did not attend the Bella Center. This proved to be the right decision because of the huge protests and unexpected beatings of innocent protestors. As was mentioned earlier, NGO’s have been completely excluded from the conference. I believe this is because of the very poor planning of the COP15 planning committee. This has ended the amount of time I am able to attend the conference for. For me, this is very disappointing.
Today only 300 NGO representatives were allowed into the event (according to the UN). Myself and none of my fellow members representing the California Student Sustainability Coalition (CSSC) were allowed in. Word on the street was that every NGO was denied today. See the video below to see how empty the center was.
Today Hillary Clinton made an offer for developing countries. The offer sought to “inject new momentum into talks here aimed at reaching a global agreement to control greenhouse gases, backing a proposal to create an international pot of money for developing countries that could be worth more than $100 billion a year by the end of the next decade”. This offer is much higher than the $84 million dollars previously offered by the United States earlier this week. Unfortunately, this amount is still not enough compared to the demands G77 countries have asked for. Although this is a step in the right direction I believe this is still not enough.
A six-page document from the U.N. office leaked today. This document, dated Dec. 15, was a detailed compilation of all the major countries’ pledges and plans for curbing their emissions. A Calculation suggesting that these countries would not hold global temperature ruse under the goal of 2 degrees Celsius that the world leaders have set was also found. This could have potential negative consequences for this event. The event has one more day for meetings. President Barack Obama is supposedly flying in tomorrow for the conference. Hopefully he will be the savior for the climate justice our people and Earth need.
The youth sit-in that was happening right outside the Plenary in the Bella center (where the climate change summit is being held in Copenhagen) just ended with the 20 or so youth remaining being told that they needed to leave or no more NGO participants would be allowed in for the final two days of the conference. The action started at 5 pm with 30 youth form around the world sitting and refusing to leave until their demand for a fair, ambitious, and legally binding agreement was made. They sat and began to read the names of 11 million people who signed a petition demanding a fair ambitious, and legally binding treaty. It is clear to youth and delegates of countries around the world that getting such a treaty is too important to give up on, and accepting pieced together compromise that will not set the world on the course to slow climate change is not an option!
This action was truly international with youth form Canada, Wales, Turkey, France, U.S., Denmark, Australia, Germany, China, Lebanon, England, Ireland, Kenya, and Norway. Youth from around the world know what is at stake and held strong at this action to show the delegates, countries, and world that now is the time to act to save our planet and all of the people on it. Evan as security showed up and asked them to move to the side, the participants held their ground. This resulted in the participants being dragged by security to the side of the room and followed by many taken into custody while onlookers chanted “the whole world is watching”. But Still they did not leave and continued reading off names from the side of the walkway.
The final 19 bold and courageous participants in this demonstration left the Bella center at around 2 am after being told they would be arrested and would cause all other NGO participant admittance to be banned for the last two remaining days of the conference. I applaud them and thank them for taking such a strong stand for the future and safety of our world and ALL the people in it. I ask anyone reading this to plan a solidarity sit-in where ever you are to raise awareness about what is happening here in Copenhagen and to show support for a fair, ambitious, and legally binding treaty to come out of COP-15. Thank you for your support!! Also check out the live blog from the sit-in at:
We arrived at the Bella Center at 6:30am. The lined formed quickly and I was around the 50th person. The registration line opened around 8:00am. Quickly we began to move single file down a long pathway. After 2.5 hours, my group was officially registered for the event.
Once entering the venue, the first room is comprised of NGO (Non-governmental organizations) booths. These booths littered the giant room and consisted of such groups at 350.org, tck.tck.tck, and SustainUS. We all chatted around this area for quite sometime. It was very informative and insightful to listen to other points of view. Many of the booths were handing out free pamphlets or information DVD’s. I even received a guide to climate change handbook (It’s very interesting).
The Bella Center was not what I was expecting! I had the impression there would be more open sessions and civil society participation. This was not the case. Instead, I found NGO’s to be shunned out of meetings and information in general. This was extremely disappointing and discouraging. I found it more helpful to be updated through the New York Times or DemocracyNow.com. I would highly recommend these resources for great up to date information!
My colleagues and I first set off to a “open-ended informal consultation to address issues requiring political guidance”. This was being held in the amazingly beautiful Plenary I (Tycho Brahe).This is the room where all delegates meet to discuss the issues. Unfortunately, this was delayed entirely after waiting for three hours – Very disappointing. Next, the coalition of students participated in an “action” with other youth from around the world. This was particularity fun! The youth lines the halls of the Bella Center, spanning around 300 meters, holding flags from countries. These countries represented the most responsible and climate responsible states of all. This mostly consisted of the G77 countries (Africa + China + India). We stood in the line for 30 minutes in complete silence. During this time photographs and news stations were continuously filming the line of diversified, but united youth. It was very impressive. After the 30 minutes the line quickly broke into normal behavior like nothing had happened. The amount of actions taken during the first day was phenomenal. People, especially youth, consistently had an action happening throughout the entire day. This ranged from dressing up, all the way to singing carols. Later in the day I went to a COP15 President questions session. Connie Hedegaard took questions from the press. As of right now, the conference is not going very well. This was addressed very quickly into the question section. Connie spoke about how the momentum must change when the Head of States arrive on Thursday. Currently, the delegates are acting out of line. She has been very disappointed with the negotiations, but was a strong believer in the promise of an agreement.
A group of youth activists have been working together for the United States within the Bella Center confines. Their goal is to reach “champions” such as Al Gore with letters and other forms of contact. The have been working tediously to put pressure on the United States Senate. Hopefully this will give a great perspective from students currently in Copenhagen.
This was the first day. I hope everything will be much better tomorrow.
Hello from Eva here in Copenhagen!! I just finished my second day- Tuesday Dec. 15th at the conference and the experience so far has been very empowering. I have been meeting with US youth to strategize and take actions to push our nation to make a strong legally binding deal with the rest of the world. This is the second week of the conference and the US as well as other developing nations have not put out any proposals that would set our world on a track to effectively prevent climate change catastrophe. It has been a bit dreary with 7 hours of daylight and temperatures in the low 40’s with snow, but the youth have been standing strong, holding actions throughout the Bella conference center, showing up in high numbers for important meetings and asking questions. As many of you have heard, Tuvalu, a small pacific island state, is calling for aggressive legally binding negotiations that aim for 350 parts per million, the most recent limit scientists have said is a safe for carbon in our atmosphere, $300 billion for climate adaptation, and no more than one degree rise in global average temperature over the next decade. Many youth actions and work in the conference has been in alliance with the Small Pacific Island States and the countries that are most at risk for climate change to show our commitment to a global deal that does not leave anyone out, and in this case, does not condemn certain Countries and peoples to climate disaster and death.
Today COP-15 started restricting the NGO observers by requiring a secondary badge issued to all of the heads of delegations. Our delegation – the California Student Sustainability Coalition, was accredited through Earth Island Institute and was issued 6 secondary badges for 47 students! This restriction was incredibly disappointing and in my opinion reflected badly on the organization of the conference. More than simply a reflection of poor planning and organizing, this massive restriction is banning the civil society from the negotiations. This puts an even bigger strain on the little input and affect that we did have on the negotiations. US youth are continuing to organize and take actions outside of the conference and have secured a new meeting space outside of the Bella center since we no longer can hold our US youth or YOUNGO (coordinator of youth NGOs) meetings inside the center.
Youth have already begun to organize outside actions to assure that our presence is not lost. Tomorrow thousands will march in three different groups to the Bella center. One of the groups will attempt to enter the center and their arrival at the center will be met with an NGO and Delegate walkout from the conference itself. Hopefully the March stays peaceful and demonstrates the need to have our voices heard in these crucial negotiations that will determine all of out future.
Everyone seems to feel that the negotiations are going badly, especially with the G77 walk-out planned for today. This is why I'm hopeful:
Press Briefing by Todd Stern Special Envoy for Climate Change and Head of the United States Delegation UN Climate Change Negotiations, Copenhagen, Denmark December 15, 2009 I wanted – just before we get into questions, I thought I might take a minute to make a few comments about the U.S. mitigation commitment. The – I frequently talk about or am asked about issues of comparabilities between the U.S. and other developed countries. And I frequently say that our numbers are quite comparable by any number of measures. But I thought I would actually treat you today to a few of the numbers for a minute that I think actually do make that point. And I would say that it’s – it’s only in the hermetically-sealed world of global climate change negotiations that a baseline year of 1990 to measure the reduction of emissions from now to 2020 would be treated as sacrosanct.
So, let me just start with – for a second again with what our number is. We have put in a proposal of a reduction that’s around 17% below 2005 levels in 2020. And with those numbers ramping up rapidly to about 30% below 2005 by 2025 and 42% by 2030. And even compared to 1990, by the way, those numbers in 2025 and 2030 would be 18% and 33%. By that measure – but only by that measure – the U.S. is substantially – the U.S. reduction is substantially less than the EU, for example. And by the way, I have nothing but respect for what the EU has done and continues to do on climate change, so this is in no sense a criticism of the EU. It’s just an explanation of what the U.S. is doing. So if you compare our reduction levels against the 2005 – obviously more recent number and one that’s more relevant to what President Obama could do, coming into office – the U.S. 17% stacks up against a reduction by the EU of about 13%. This is based on an EU 20% reduction against 1990. That’s sort of a basic number right now. So if you translated that to 2005, there would be about a 13% reduction, so less than what the U.S. is putting down.
If you look at a second measure, which is our reduction from where we are now, compared to business as usual, the U.S. offers a 17% reduction and the EU’s about 12%. Japan and Australia would be, I think, 10% for Japan and 20% for Australia. Per capita reduction, – even against 1990, the U.S. proposal would be a 29% reduction, the EU a 25% reduction.
The carbon intensity – that’s a number that China’s using, by the way, in its own numbers – the carbon intensity for the U.S. is a number that’s just about exactly in line with the carbon intensity reduction for the EU and other developed countries.
And then lastly, if you look at the change in atmospheric concentrations, the U.S. offer would reduce atmospheric concentrations by about three times more than those put forward by other Annex 1 countries, even if you equalize or account for the different starting points, in terms of who had larger emissions to begin with.
So, in five out of six – by five out of six measures, the U.S. is equal to or higher than the EU or many of our other developed country partners. So again, no criticism meant on them. But I have fielded questions all year long from many of my counterparts about why isn’t the U.S. doing more, and as I say, the U.S. is doing a lot. The only measure by which it looks like the U.S. isn’t doing as much is 1990.
So anyway, just thought I would brighten your day with a few statistics. And then I’m happy to take questions.
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QUESTION: My question is, even if you say the U.S. proposed reduction pledge for 2020 is very comparable – by a lot of measures, more ambitious than other Annex 1 proposals – how do you reconcile it with scientists’ recommendations, who say that developed countries need to reduce emission by 25 to 40 %, relative to 1990? And this is a 3% reduction. Thanks.
MR. STERN: Thanks very much. I actually absolutely can reconcile it, and here’s the reason. I think that the 25 to 40 % reduction below 1990 was included in what has become a kind of iconic chart in the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC, the scientific body. And that sets forth a good pathway for essentially holding emissions to around 450 parts per million, which is designed to give us a decent chance of holding temperature increases to 2 degrees above preindustrial. It’s not the only pathway, at all. There are a whole lot of other pathways that can get you there. We have – our proposal and the legislation that’s pending in Congress would take us, decade by decade – about 20% every decade – to an 80% reduction. Actually, 80% below 1990, 83% below 2005 -- which would be right on target with what we would need to do. There is all kinds of scientific work that - the President’s science advisor, John Holdren is actually here; I’m sure [he] would be happy to talk to you about this in Copenhagen - has laid out a whole set of other pathways that can get you where you need to go. The difference – just so you can sort of again have the frame in mind – the difference between the pathway that the U.S. has charted and the pathway that would involve starting at that 25 to 40 % below 1990 – the difference between that and what we’re doing is about 1 part per million in 2050. So I think that we’re on a very good path.
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