Copenhagen Day 4: Negotiations on a new treaty still suspended -- but lots of work going on!

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Today is youth and future generations day, and I was greeted on my 8 am arrival at the Bella Conference Center by dozens of youth in orange T-shirts. The front said “How old will you be in 2050?” (referring to the distant deadline for 80% carbon emissions reductions – I will be 83, if I am lucky) and the back said “[don’t bracket our future]”, (a reference to key and controversial language in negotiations which is often bracketed). Here’s a video of a spontaneous youth group [2] that attracted a crowd in the conference center as part of today’s youth action:

I attended an early morning press conference organized by the Climate Justice Now! [3] network representing more than 200 African NGOs, to convey a letter to President Obama [4] (.pdf) on the day he is receiving his Nobel Peace Prize [5]. The basic message was that Africa has produced less than 3% of the global warming pollution, yet is being confronted with a disproportionate share of the warming impacts. Experts agree that 2 degrees of global warming is equivalent to a 3-3.5 degrees in Africa and would cause devastation through crop failures, water shortages, and health crises. In a related move, the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance [6] and Climate Justice Now! Coalition spoke in the negotiations plenary to say that:

It is a cruel irony indeed that a people who have lived for so long in harmony with nature are now suffering the disastrous effects of greenhouse gases emitted by developed countries…The current proposal and pledges by Annex I Parties are supposedly aimed at limiting global warming to 2 degrees. They will not, and 2 degrees is a death sentence for Africa. According to the IPCC, Africa will warm by more than the average global level. 2 degrees globally means 3 or more degrees for my continent. Such an increase in temperature would lead to widespread devastation. It will lead to massive reduction in crop yields in some areas, cutting food outputs in half. More than 600 million people left without adequate water supplies. Our coastlines, villages and cattle will be ravaged. Literally millions of people will die. The injustice does not stop here. Based on Annex I Parties current proposals and pledges, the 20% of people living in developed countries would consume over 60% of the Earth’s atmospheric space while the 80% who are poor will be consigned to live within the remaining 40%. You are literally stealing from us the very sky over our heads. A mere $10 billion is proposed under the Convention negotiations in so-called short-term financing, while the rich countries seek to appropriate from poor countries an atmospheric resource worth trillions. Your 10 billion will not be enough to buy our coffins. We are expected to accept this deal. Worse still we are expected to celebrate this as success. We will not. This grab of our shared atmospheric resource is nothing less than climate colonialism. Yesterday, African civil society marched alongside Parliamentarians from across the continent chanting: ‘Two degrees is suicide’ and ‘One Africa, One Degree’. You must all be absolutely clear: we will not die in silence.

Then, to get a clearer explanation of what happened yesterday with Tuvalu’s intervention requesting a formal group to negotiate a binding treaty, I spoke to David Ngatae, the Chairperson of the Cook Islands Climate Action Network [7]:

I learned that yesterday’s spontaneous pro-Tuvalu rally [8] triggered a serious push back from security who were very upset that it was near the plenary and was “unannounced” (i.e. no 24 hour warning time was provided). Security demanded drastic action from UNFCCC, which is organizing the COP negotiations; they wanted to remove 350.org’s accreditation because there were a lot of 350 placards in the audience, as well as the accreditation of 7-8 people, including a WWF staffer. Security is nervous. Danish police are nervous as well and raided youth housing provided by the Danish Government at 2:30 am the other night looking for tools of civil disobedience.

Meanwhile, President Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in nearby Oslo and is due here in Copenhagen on Friday December 18th on the final day of the negotiations. I wrote an article [9] (.pdf) for Eco [10] (.pdf), which is the key daily publication produced by a global range of non-governmental organizations and circulated throughout the COP Bella Center every day. My point was that now more than ever we need President Obama’s leadership -- I brought the African voices to the table through their letter [4] (.pdf) and explained that President Obama's hands are not tied by Congress's delay in passing climate legislation (special thanks to Bill Becker [11] and KC Golden [12], who allowed me to plagiarize liberally from their recent blogs!).

For details on today’s Fossil of the Day [13] go to the website for the surprise fossils and the second ever Ray of the Day!

And finally, I attended a late night and still off-the-record briefing by the U.S. Government delegation, notably Jonathan Pershing and Interior Secretary Salazar…we are preparing advocacy strategies for the arrival of the congressional delegation and various members of the Cabinet that are arriving daily.