Jamie Henn, 350.org: Mic check at Durban

Dear Friends,

Last Friday afternoon at the UN Climate Talks, a member of our 350.org team here in Durban walked into the main conference center hallway, and in the tradition of Occupy movements around the world, yelled "Mic check!"

Much to the surprise of UN security and official negotiators, hundreds of people yelled back: "Mic check!" Together, we unfurled banners with messages reading "Don't Kill Africa" and "Stand with Island Nations," and began marching towards the main negotiating room.

For the next two hours, the 350.org team and our allies occupied the hallways of the climate talks, using the "human microphone" (the crowd repeating each line a speaker says) to amplify the voices of people from around the world, including an official Egyptian negotiator and the Environment Minister of the Maldives.

Many of you were there, too, in global solidarity. One of the signs we carried read, "703,000 People Stand With You." That's the (astonishing) number of people who signed petitions, including at 350.org, that called on the United States to stop blocking progress.

Check out the courageous movement moments from Durban:

Our collective efforts forced the US to back down from locking in the "worst idea ever": delaying agreement on a new climate treaty until 2020. The roadmap agreed to in Durban calls for a climate agreement to be reached by 2015, with full implementation five years later. It's better than "the worst" possible outcome, but it's still a cowardly, unacceptable delay on global climate action -- and a recipe for climate disasters.

There was some tentative progress on other issues: plans solidified for a “green climate fund” to help developing countries, and a tentative blueprint emerged for a legal climate agreement that would apply to all major emitters of greenhouse gases. And in a surprise to some, the talks didn't collapse completely. 

But on the whole, the results from Durban are a grave disappointment. The United States and its allies were able to throw up enough roadblocks to stop the type of transformative progress we need to really take on the climate crisis. Targets for emissions reductions are still too vague, too weak, or too distant to get carbon dioxide levels down below the safe upper limit of 350.

Here's the tough reality we now need to face together: the international climate negotiations -- or the US Congress, for that matter -- are never going to produce transformative progress until we can break the stranglehold that fossil fuel companies have on our governments around the world.

Here’s what Bill McKibben had to say about the situation:

“We're not going to be overly distracted by the ongoing shell game of endless UN negotiations. We know that the real debate is between the bottom line of the scientists, and the bottom line of the fossil fuel companies -- and we're working hard to tip that debate towards science. Just as we took on the Keystone XL oil pipeline, we're going to take on the subsidies that make the oil companies so rich, and the systemic corruption that makes them so politically powerful.”

If there is one definitive lesson from Durban, it's this: we have a lot of work to do as a movement. In 2012, 350.org will launch hard-hitting campaigns to confront the root causes of the climate crisis, and together we'll build bottom-up climate solutions -- solutions that don't require a global treaty to get the world on the path to climate safety. 

We'll be in touch to discuss the details, but you can be sure we're going to need all the help we can get.

More soon,

Jamie Henn for the whole 350.org team

P.S. While we didn't see great ambition from negotiators in Durban, this UN conference saw the most courage we’ve ever seen from youth delegates and civil society. We hope you’ll  share the “Courage in South Africa” wrap-up far and wide with a couple of clicks on Twitter and Facebook. Or, just pass along this link: www.350.org/this/is/courage

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More Links and Info

Nations set course for 2015 global climate pact - AFP 

Q&A: Why Durban is different to climate change agreements of the past - The Guardian

The top five takeaways from the Durban climate talks - Grist 

Gareth Renowden: A MAD DEAL IN DURBAN

A MAD DEAL IN DURBAN

by GARETH renowden, hot topic, DECEMBER 11, 2011

Let’s revisit that cold war phrase: mutually assured destruction. Fifty years ago, MAD meant that in the event of conflict the USA and USSR could and would ensure the total annihilation of the other, thus ensuring what Wikipedia rather tamely describes as “a tense but stable global peace.” Having lived through those years, the tension was notable, and in some cases inspirational.

The madness on display in Durban is of another kind, and of a different character. The destruction on offer will be (we can only hope) slower, but it is likely to be just as total — and is certainly being mutually assured. The governments of the world, by kicking the can down the road aways, have just ensured that the task of reducing emissions will be harder than it need be, and that the ultimate damage will be greater than it might have been. [Guardian]

Durban represents progress of a kind, as Climate Action Tracker’s analysis acknowledges:

As the climate talks in Durban concluded tonight with a groundbreaking establishment of the Durban Platform to negotiate a new global agreement by 2015, scientists stated that the world continues on a pathway of over 3 °C warming with likely extremely severe impacts, the Climate Action Tracker said today.

The agreement in Durban to establish a new body to negotiate a global agreement (Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action) by 2015 represents a major step forward. The Climate Action Tracker scientists stated, however, that the agreement will not immediately affect the emissions outlook for 2020 and has postponed decisions on further emission reductions. They warned that catching up on this postponed action will be increasingly costly.

What is mind-boggling is that so many leaders, so many highly-skilled diplomats and negotiators, can accept the evidence being offered by our understanding of climate system, and yet so comprehensively fail to act.

History and human nature, combined with the dysfunctional nature of international relations have conspired to give us what looks like it might be the worst of all worlds: one where lip service is paid to taking action, but where the big players are excused responsibility, and any efforts made are weak and meaningless. Plus c’est la même chose.

And so as not to beg the obvious question: I am left agreeing with Joe Romm. It will take a series of undeniable climate disasters, sufficient to provide the equivalent of a wartime motivation for action, before our politicians feel empowered to take the necessary action — before the world will act appropriately. One can only hope that the damage is not costly in terms of human welfare and wellbeing, and that they happen before nature rips the reins from our hands and the Anthropocene comes to an end.

http://hot-topic.co.nz/a-mad-deal-in-durban/

Listen to her words at least 3 times: "Get It Done": Urging Climate Justice, Youth Delegate Anjali Appadurai Mic Checks U.N. Summit

"Get It Done": Urging Climate Justice, Youth Delegate Anjali Appadurai Mic Checks U.N. Summit

At minute 15:39:

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by Amy Goodman, Democracy Now, December 9, 2011


A number of protests are being held today at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban to protest the failure of world leaders to agree to immediately agree to a deal of binding emissions cuts. Anjali Appadurai, a student at the College of the Atlantic in Maine, addressed the conference on behalf of youth delegates. Just after her speech, she led a mic check from the stage — a move inspired by the Occupy Wall Street protests. "It always seems impossible until it’s done," Appadurai said. "So, distinguished delegates and governments around the world, governments of the developed world: Deep [emissions] cuts now. Get it done." [includes rush transcript]

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/12/9/get_it_done_urging_climate_justice

Abigail Borah from Middlebury College interupts Todd Stern, U.S. climate envoy, who is later questioned by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now in Durban

"I’m Scared for My Future": Student Disrupts Speech by U.S. Climate Envoy Todd Stern in Durban

Several prominent U.S. environmental groups have accused the Obama administration of obstructing negotiations at the United Nations Climate Change Conference and have called for the United States to step aside and let other countries carry on with the talks. Earlier today, the top U.S. climate negotiator Todd Stern addressed the U.N. summit for the first time. But as he took the stage, Middlebury College student Abigail Borah interrupted the proceedings. "I am scared for my future," Borah told Stern. "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." Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman later questioned Stern about Borah’s comments and accusations the United States is a major obstacle to progress at the climate talks. [includes rush transcript]

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/12/8/im_scared_for_my_future_student

Heather Libby, tcktcktck: As extreme weather destroys Durban slum, residents call for climate action

As extreme weather destroys Durban slum, residents call for climate action

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by Heather Libby , tcktcktck, November 29, 2011

Creative Commons: Dorothy Voorhees, 2010

After more than a decade of living on Canada’s West Coast, I consider myself a connoisseur of rain. I thought I’d seen it all until Sunday night’s epic rain and windstorm here in Durban, South Africa. The skies opened up – dousing the city with sheets of rain, driving wind and purple lightning. Dry, safe and ensconced in my hotel, I admit to being a little thrilled by the relentless power of it all.

I’d resent these feelings the next morning.

As I would learn when I arrived at the ICC, the rainstorm which had delighted me the previous night was a killer. 6 people in one of Durban’s poorest neighbourhoods, the Abahlali, died as flood waters and rain washed away their homes. Brad Johnson shares the hard numbers at Climate Progress:

Ten people along South Africa’s east coast were killed, 700 houses destroyed, and thousands left homeless following torrential rains on Sunday. According to the South Africa Weather Bureau, 2.5 inches of rain fell last night in Durban, which had already recorded 8.2 inches for November, almost double its average.

It is appropriate that the UN Climate Talks would begin in Durban the morning after the disaster. After all, this is the conference where parties are deciding to fill the climate fund. Established in Cancun last year, this fund is designed to provide developing countries with money for adaptation so they can be better prepared for floods like this. In an op-ed in the local Durban newspaper, the residents of Abahlali called for UN negotiators to recognize ‘the full force of what extreme weather does to the poor.’

“Whose interests will this Conference of the Parties serve if the poor are outside busy dealing with effect of the floods which are the direct result of our vulnerability to bad weather in the shacks? How can the world begin these talks without going and experiencing the effect and the reality of how the change in climate will affect the people in Durban whose lives are already most precarious? Today it is clear that these talks will take us nowhere if they ignore the reality that those who will suffer the consequences of the change in climate the most are the poor. So, excluding the poor in these talks will not help any of us. …The rich have caused and are causing climate change but it is us, the poor, who will pay the greatest price. The rich, in South Africa and around the world, have to be called to order. Our safety depends on this.”

If you would like to learn more about the Abahlali, I encourage you to watch ‘A Place in the City,’ an excellent documentary from Journeyman Pictures about the settlement. It is embedded below:

As the talks start on Day 2, the residents of Abahlali are on my mind. I hope they’re on the minds of negotiators as well.

http://tcktcktck.org/2011/11/as-extreme-weather-destroys-durban-slum-residents-call-for-climate-action/

Ten million Facebook users against climate change: Initiative CLIMATE VOTE PROJECT is gearing up for the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in South Africa!

On Monday, at 1:00 p.m. CET, CLIMATE VOTE PROJECT, the initiative to slow the pace of global warming, was kicked off with the launch of the homepage www.climatevoteproject.org. 

The purpose of the German initiative is to challenge worldwide governments at the UN Climate Conference (COP 17 - CMP 7) in Durban from 28 Nov. to 9 Dec. 2011 in order to set the course for the conclusion of a comprehensive, legally binding climate protection agreement for the time after 2012. This request should be submitted personally on November 29, 2011 to the government leaders who are participating in Durban, in particular, the USA and China. Ten million Facebook users are expected to add weight and consequences to this appeal and to increase the pressure on people in responsible positions.

Just a few days ago, the initiative was able to win over Prof. Dr. Mojib Latif, one of the most renowned German climate scientists and contributing author of the two very latest IPCC Reports, as an official climate ambassador for this project."Climate change is continuing immediately and rapidly. 

Despite various efforts on the part of industrial nations, world-wide CO2 emissions have not decreased - on the contrary. In 2010, worldwide CO2 emissions hit a new record. That is why we are demanding that governments - especially the leading industrial countries - conclude and implement, as quickly as possible, more substantial and advanced measures towards CO2 reduction," said Sven Lilienström, spokesperson of the Initiative CLIMATE VOTE PROJECT.

Starting immediately, all Facebook users can support the campaign by just clicking the "Like" button.

Download this Press Information here: http://www.climatevoteproject.org/about-climate-vote-project.html

About CLIMATE VOTE PROJECT:

The CLIMATE VOTE PROJECT is a non-governmental and privately organized initiative that was founded in Germany in the summer of 2011. 

The CLIMATE VOTE PROJECT does not represent any type of economic interests whatsoever. On the one hand, the objective of the campaign is to make people more aware of the controversial debate on the issue of climate change and on the other hand, it aims to substantially intensify the pressure on the governments in charge and to demand stronger efforts to reduce the global emission of CO2.

Press Contact:

Sven Lilienström
Spokesperson CLIMATE VOTE PROJECT
Broicherdorf-Str. 53
Germany - 41564 Kaarst
E-Mail: pressroom@climatevoteproject.org
Web: www.climatevoteproject.org