Join us in Washington, DC at 12pm on Tuesday, January 24 to Blow the Whistle on Congress!

And here’s Boehner’s original video:

Filed under: global warming

This treaty – the only treaty ever to commit nations to legally binding targets on greenhouse gas emissions – provides essential stability for continued action on climate change. A void in international agreements could prove fatal for people and communities across the planet. Young people are calling for a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol to be implemented immediately to provide a bridge to a new, more comprehensive climate treaty by 2015.

A second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol is essential. The leaders of polluting nations have run out of excuses. We are running out of time too. We need a legally binding agreement now to ensure a safe future for us and future generations. The Durban Package signals recognition that the world’s governments will purposely and comprehensively address the causes of climate change.

The final agreement that will involve all countries have to ensure that climate change mitigation measures are sufficient to meet the goal of keeping global temperature rise below 2°C.

Negotiations are underway in Panama, the last gathering of climate diplomats prior to the big Durban Climate Conference at the end of the year.

Last June Yvo De Boer, former head of the UN climate convention and for years THE stalwart champion of the negotiating process, commented that “this process is dead in the water, it’s not going anywhere.” I generally don’t repeat self-defeating soundbites, but his words did seem to echo a sense within the climate community that perhaps more immediate progress could be made in a bottom-up approach at the national or business level.

I recently asked current UN climate head Christiana Figueres what she makes of this. She told me a bottom-up approach is not mutually exclusive from a top-down effort to get a treaty:
“The first encourages countries to seek the opportunities that are most evident at the moment in order to start the process of the transformation, but the top down is necessary to ensure that the collective effort responds to the requirements of science. Think of it as paying a bill. We can start making payments in amounts that are possible right now, but in the end we have to pay the full bill, or we will pass it onto our children.”

So here are seven reasons why we still need to fight for a fair, ambitious and legally binding, international agreement in order to pay that bill on behalf of our children:

1) It’s urgent. We need to get the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere to stabilize at 350 parts per million or lower. We have currently overshot the mark at 390 — so we need to drastically reduce our emissions, and fast. Global CO2 emissions need to peak within the next few years, and then steeply decline from there on out. The longer it takes to reach that peak, the steeper the reductions will have to be in subsequent years. The graph below, although several years old now, visually demonstrates just how much harder it will be to deal with the problem if we don’t move quickly.

Courtesy of M. Meinshausen, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)

2) It will create long-term certainty for business investment. The International Energy Agency has estimated that $26 trillion in capital investment is needed to meet global energy demand through 2030. Clearly most of that investment will be made by the private sector, and businesses repeatedly say they need long-term certainty to guide those investments. For example, will carbon polluters continue to get a free ride, or will a binding emissions reduction target result in a high price on carbon? The answer to that question matters a lot when it comes to investing in energy infrastructure. And while renewables make sense in their own right, investment in large-scale energy efficiency doesn’t generally happen without regulatory or financial incentives. Doing this one country at a time is too slow, and…

3) It will be more economically efficient for countries to do it all together. Whatever you may think of carbon markets as a means of reducing emissions, they are having an impact. But there is a patchwork of different schemes, which is not nearly as economically efficient as a more comprehensive scheme would be.

4) Collective action is needed. While countries like the Maldives set an important example by moving towards carbon neutrality even in the absence of a binding law requiring them to do so, most countries are not as noble. Many will want to know that their competitors are taking comparable action before they make the deepest cuts in emissions. Signing, ratifying and passing legislation to implement an international agreement with effective compliance and enforcement mechanisms demonstrates a longer-term commitment not easily undone following the next election.

5) Unpopular decisions may be more palatable if other countries are taking them as well. Misinformation campaigns by the fossil fuel industry have whipped up populous opposition in several countries which have tried to pass legislation reducing CO2 emissions. It’s time to wage the mother of all wars against these special interests, and this will be easier if they can’t play one country off against another.

6) Who will otherwise pay for adaptation? It’s too late to halt climate change altogether. The Netherlands, where I live, learned about storm surges the hard way when nearly 2000 people lost their lives in the flood of 1953. The Delta Works — a €5 billion system of barriers and dikes — was constructed to ensure this never happens again. How will Bangladesh, a country which did little to cause the problem, ever be able to provide their citizens with the same degree of protection? And coastal flooding is only one of the many problems caused by climate change. No-regrets measures to improve energy efficiency and scale up renewables will not take care of this problem.

7) We are morally obligated. For the sake of intergenerational responsibility, climate justice and social equity we must effectively and comprehensively address the climate problem. And for the reasons described above, this will only happen through an international agreement.

So here are a few recommendations for negotiators meeting in Panama:

• Secure the future of the Kyoto Protocol with a second commitment period. It’s the only legally binding agreement we have for now.
• Obama administration officials: stop criticizing the Kyoto Protocol until you have something more to offer. If you can’t say anything constructive, don’t say anything at all! And everyone else: stop listening to the US on the subject of Kyoto.
• Europe: up your game by confirming your unconditional intention of signing up to a second round of Kyoto commitments. It’s a no-brainer — it makes economic, political and diplomatic sense to do so.
• Agree a process and timeline to finalize a legally binding deal that includes all major emitters while recognizing the common but differentiated responsibilities between countries at different stages of development.
• Finance for developing countries is a key lever in breaking the deadlock. Despite the recession, there are many innovative proposals on the table which you could adopt: a tax on shipping and aviation fuels, a financial transaction tax, and the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies to name a few.

In 2010, CO2 emissions went up by 5% — the fastest rise in the last 20 years. The big emitters need to start talking seriously about increasing their level of ambition, and must stop obstructing progress in the negotiations. And the rest of us need to hold our governments accountable to deliver the necessary agreements sooner rather than later.

Read more from Kelly Rigg on the Huffington Post

70 people from across the US and Canada were arrested at the White House this morning for the first day of a two week sit-in aimed at pressuring President Obama to deny the permit for a massive new oil pipeline. Over 2,000 more people are expected to join the daily civil disobedience over the coming days.

At stake is what has quickly become the largest environmental test for President Obama before the 2012 election. The President must choose whether or not to grant a Canadian company a permit to build a 1,700 mile pipeline from the Alberta tar sands to refineries on the gulf of mexico.

Environmentalists warn that the pipeline could cause a BP disaster right in America’s heartland, over the largest source of fresh drinking water in the country. The world’s top climatologist, Dr. James Hansen, has warned that if the Canadian tar sands are fully developed it could be “game over” for the climate.

“It’s not the easiest thing on earth for law-abiding folk to come risk arrest. But this pipeline has emerged as the single clear test of the president’s willingness to fight for the environment,” said environmentalist and author Bill McKibben, who is spearheading the protests and was arrested this morning. “So I wore my Obama ’08 button, and I carry a great deal of hope in my heart that we will see that old Obama emerge. It’s hot out here today, especially when you’re wearing a suit and tie. But it’s nowhere near as hot as it’s going to get if we lose this fight.”

McKibben was amongst those arrested today, along with the co-founder of NRDC and former White House official Gus Speth, gay rights activist Lt. Dan Choi, author and activist Mike Tidwell, Firedoglake founder Jane Hamsher, and many others.

Environmentalists say that the President’s failure to take any substantive steps to protect the environment and stop the climate crisis has left his base disheartened and desperate. While the President can blame Congress for the Democrats’ failure to pass a climate bill despite unprecedented majorities, the decision whether or not to grant the Keystone XL the permit necessary for construction is his and only his.

The protest began with a small rally in Lafeyette Park, where participants listened to McKibben address the crowd and prepared themselves for what will likely be an afternoon in jail. At about 11:00 AM, the group formed two lines and marched to the White House fence to the applause of onlookers. A group of participants lined the fence, holding two large banners that read “Climate Change is Not in Our National Interest: Stop the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline” and “We Sit In Against the Keystone XL Pipeline. Obama Will You Stand Up to Big Oil?” The rest of the group sat-in on the sidewalk infront of the fence.

Within a few minutes, police began issuing warnings to clear the area. At 11:30 AM, a young woman from Sarah Palin’s hometown of Wasilla, AK was the first person to be arrested. Arrests proceeded for over an hour as van-loads of protestors were taken away from the White House.

Jane Kleeb, an outspoken opponent of the pipeline and founder of BOLD Nebraska, stood in Lafayette Park this morning and cheered on the protestors as they were arrested.

“Nebraskans are counting on President Obama to do the right thing,” said Kleeb, who is planning to risk arrest on Monday with a delegation of farmers and ranchers who are coming in from Nebraska. “Back home we are fighting to protect our land and water. We decided to bring that fight to the President’s doorstep because our families’ legacies, those that homesteaded the very land now threatened by a foreign oil company, are too important for us sit on the sidelines. We are acting on our values and expect our President to act as well.”

The coalition organizing the protest, Tarsandsaction.org, is accepting donations and new sign-ups for the sit-in throughout the next two weeks. For more information, the public can visit tarsandsaction.org or follow the group on Twitter at @tarsandsaction.

Filed under: 350, Direct Action, Dirty Energy, global warming, Government, Tar Sands, United States

But that original vision still remains unfulfilled.

In the last four years, our movement is has grown bigger, more diverse and more experienced.  So why aren’t we running for office?

It won’t be easy (neither is stopping a coal plant).  We may be new at this (same with creating sustainable communities).  But unless we take a risk and try something a little crazy, our communities will be stuck with the same candidates as usual.

I have a couple of theories why we aren’t seeing a wave of young people running for office: we tend to move around a lot; we are worried older folks won’t take us seriously; campaigns can cost money and most of us don’t have a lot of savings; some people don’t want to work from “inside the system.”  The reasons (excuses) for not running for office could go on and on.  But ultimately few climate organizers are running for office because we just haven’t stepped up to do it.

To help us figure out how to overcome those barriers and make successful runs for public office, a national conference call will be hosted by 350.org, Energy Action Coalition, Young People For, the Front Line Leaders Academy, and the Young Elected Officials for young climate organizers interested in running for office.

The call will be Wednesday, July 27^th at 4:30pm EDT.  We’re asking you to RSVP for call details (and so that we can send you follow up resources easily).

Running for office may be a big (but surprisingly simple) decision, but it is one that we should start preparing for now.  Join the call and get started.

Filed under: 350, Act Locally, Climate Policy, global warming, Government, Jobs, Political Participation, Politics, United States, Youth Leaders

Today I got to stand next to more than 50 Massachusetts mothers, children, workers, community leaders, and people of faith to kick off something truly unique – a “crowd-funded” citizen’s campaign to hold Senator Scott Brown accountable for voting to gut the Clean Air Act. At 12:00pm on the sidewalk in front of the JFK Federal Building in Boston, also known as Scott Brown’s district office, we held banners and puppets of Scott Brown and his fat cat supporters “Coal” and “Oil, signs, and a blow-up of the new ad our friends and neighbors funded.

The text of the ad read: “Senator Brown: On April 6th you voted to gut the Clean Air Act. Was it because dirty energy companies and their corporate front groups poured more than $1.9 million into your campaign last year? Are you working for people or Big Polluters?” Interested in joining us in funding the ad? Check it out here.

Right after the rally Marla took our message up the JFK elevators to Senator Brown’s office, delivering word of the rally along with 103 postcards and 240 letters from members of the Massachusetts Council of Churches and Mass Interfaith Power and Light. The messages called on Senator Brown to support the EPA’s ability to regulate carbon dioxide next time a vote comes up on the Clean Air Act and ensure low income people have access to weatherization and green jobs.

At 6:30pm tonight at a podium inside the Newton Marriott Hotel Scott Brown will host a “Women for Brown” fundraiser (with a $1000 minimum) alongside the brand new Women For Brown coalition, a group created to respond to the League of Women Voters’ ads calling Scott Brown out for his April 6th vote to gut the Clean Air Act. We know what Scott Brown is going to say at that podium tonight: “Today in front of my office the political attack machine was at it again, playing politics as usual with the public.” He’ll talk about the “special interest groups” who are attacking him for trying to defend jobs. Yes, he will raise some money tonight. But the more Scott Brown digs in his heels, the more votes he will lose.

Today’s rally was no “political attack machine,” as Brown calls people who criticize him. Today’s rally was everyday-Massachusetts – a state where you don’t get to draw a line between jobs and the environment, the economy and climate change. People here across the political spectrum and in all corners of the state understand the threat of climate change and know that the jobs of tomorrow and today are in clean energy.

Filed under: 350, Act Locally, Climate Policy, Economics, EPA, Events, Government, Green Jobs, Jobs, Politics

Full transcript is Below the Fold.

All right, listen up. Very few people can ever say that they are in
the single most important place they could possibly be doing the
single most important thing they could possibly be doing. That’s you,
here, now.

You are the movement that we need if we are going to win in the few
years that we have. You have the skills now. You are making the
connections. And there is no one else. It is you.

That is a great honor and that is a terrible burden. There is no one else.

The science is the easy part in this, grim, but easy. 2010 was the
warmest year on record. And it was warm. We were on the phone one day
with our 350 crew in Pakistan and one of them said, “It’s hot out here
today,” and I was surprised to hear him say it  because it’s usely hot
in Pakistan during the summer. He said, no it’s really hot . We just
set the new, all time Asia temperature record, 129 degrees. That kind
of heat melts the arctic. That kind of heat causes drought so deep
across Russia  that the Kremlin stops all grain exports. That kind of
heat  causes the flooding that still has 4 million people across
Pakistan homeless tonight.

It’s tough, it’s grim, but the good news at least is that it’s clear,
the science. We have a number: 350 parts per million. 350, the most
important number on earth. As the NASA team put it in January 2008,
“any value in the atmosphere greater than 350 parts per million  is
not compatible with the planet on which civilization developed and
which life on earth is adapted.”  Getting back to 350 pars per million
will be very very tough, the toughest thing human beings have ever
done, but there is no use complaining about it, it’s just physics and
chemistry. That’s what we have to do.

But if the scientific method has worked splendidly to outline our
dilemma, that’s how badly the political method has worked to solve it.
Think about our own country, historically the biggest source of carbon
emissions. Last summer, the Senate refused to even take a vote on the
tepid, moderate, tame climate bill that was before it. Last week, the
House voted 248 to 174 to pass a resolution saying global warming
wasn’t real. It was one of the most embarrassing votes that Congress
has ever taken. They believe that because they can amend the tax laws
they can amend the laws of nature too, but they can’t. I’m awful glad
a few of you went up to the visitors gallery to talk some sense to
them last week.

Even the White House. Two weeks ago, the interior secretary, who spoke
here two years ago, Ken Salazar, signed a piece of paper opening up
250 million tonnes of coal under federal land in Wyoming to mining.
That’s like opening 300 new coal fired power plants and running them
for a year. That’s a disgrace.

But you know what. We understand the physics and chemistry of
political power. In this case, it’s not carbon dioxide that rules the
day: it’s money.

Many of you are in the District of Columbia for the first time and it
looks clean and it looks sparkling. No, this city is as polluted as
Beijing. But instead of coal smoke it’s polluted by money. Money warps
our political life, it obscures our vision, but just like with physics
in chemistry there is no use whining. We know now what we need to do
and the first thing we need to do is build a movement.

We will never have as much money as the oil companies so we need a
different currency to work in, we need bodies, we need creativity, we
need spirit.

350.org has been like a beta-test for that movement. It began with
youth here at Power Shift four years ago. It’s now spread around the
planet. In the last two years, there have been 15,000 demonstrations
in 189 nations. CNN called it the most widespread political activity
in the planet’s history. But it needs to get bigger still. On the
first Earth Day in 1970 there 20 million Americans in the street, one
in ten Americans. That’s the kind of size we need.

And so, on September 24 we need your help. September 24 is the next
big day of action. We’re calling it Moving Planet and in those 189
nations, people will be in motion. Much of it will be on bicycles,
because the bicycles is one of the few tools that rich and poor both
use. Who here knows how to ride a bike? All right, September 24, I
cannot wait to see the pictures. We are not going to wait for the
politicians to move, we’re going to create the future that we need
ourselves.

But that movement doesn’t just need to be bigger, it needs to sharper
too, more aggressive.

You know what, at Copenhagen we got 117 nations to sign on to that 350
target. That was good, but they were the wrong 117 nations. They were
the poorest and most vulnerable nations. The most addicted nations,
led by our own, weren’t yet willing to bit the bullet, so that’s where
we’ve got to go to work.

That work, to deal with that money pollution, that work starts Monday
at ten o’clock in Lafayette Square, across from the White House and
next to a place called the US Chamber of Commerce.

The Koch Brothers are high peaks of corruption, but the US Chamber of
Commerce is the Everest of dirty money. It boasts on its web page that
it is the biggest lobby in Washington. In fact, it spends more money
lobbying than the next five lobbies combined. It spent more money on
politics last year than the Republican National Committee and the
Democratic National Committee combined and 94% of that went to climate
deniers.

We cannot stop their money, but we can strip them of their
credibility. They claim to represent all American business, but they
don’t. 55% of their funding came from 16 companies. They don’t have to
say who those companies are, but it’s easy to tell when you watch what
they do. They spend their time lobbying to make sure the planet heats
up as fast it possibly can.

They sent a legal brief to the EPA last year, saying that they should
take no action on climate change, because if the planet warmed, humans
could alter their behavior and their physiology to deal with the
problem. I don’t even really know what that means, alter your
physiology. Grow gills? I don’t know. But I can tell you this. I am
too old to change my physiology and you all are too good looking. But
I will adapt my behavior. Every day now I will roll out of bed and go
to work fighting them. Hell, I will go to bed at night and try to
dream up new ways to fight.

We’re going to adapt our behavior all right. We’re going to adapt our
behavior now to fight on every front. I’m sorry if that sounds
aggressive, but there we are.

Twenty-two years ago, I wrote the first book about climate change and
I’ve gotten to watch it all, and I know that simply persuasion will
not do. We need to fight. Now, we need to fight non-violently and with
civil disobedience. You will hear from my friend Tim DeChristopher in
a moment and more to come, but if you’re going to go that route, one
thing you need to make sure that you manage to get across in your
witness is that you are not the radicals in this fight.

The radicals are the people are the people who are fundamentally
altering the composition of the atmosphere. That is the most radical
thing people have ever done.

We need to fight with art and with music, too. Not just the side with
our brain that likes bar graphs and pie graphs, but with all our heart
and all our soul. Tomorrow or tonight, you need to go down behind Hall
B downstairs and help them build the art work for Monday morning.

We need to fight with unity. We need to have a coherent voice. That’s
why, last week we joined with our friends at 1Sky to build this
bigger, stronger 350.org. We need to speak with one loud voice,
because we are fighting for your future.

So far, we’ve raised the temperature of the planet one degree and
that’s done all that I’ve described, it’s melted the arctic, it’s
changed the oceans. The climatologists tell us that unless we act with
great speed and courage that one degree will be five degrees before
this century is out. And if we do that, then the world that we leave
behind will be a ruined world.

We fight not just for ourselves, we fight for the beauty of this
place. For cool trout streams and deep spruce woods. For chilly fog
rising off the Pacific and deep snow blanketing the mountains. We
fight for all the creation that shares this planet with us. We don’t
know half the species on Earth we’re wiping out.

And of course, we fight alongside our brothers and sisters around the
world. You’ve seen the pictures as I talk: these are our comrades.
Most of these people, as you see, come from places that have not
caused this problem, and yet they’re willing to be in deep solidarity
with us. That’s truly admirable and it puts a real moral burden on us.
Never let anyone tell you, that environmentalism is something that
rich, white people do. Most of the people that we work with around the
world are poor and black and brown and Asian and young, because that’s
what most of the world is made up of, and they care about the future
as anyone else.

We have to fight, finally, without any guarantee that we are going to
win. We have waited late to get started and our adversaries are strong
and we do not know how this is going to come out. If you were a
betting person, you might bet we were going to lose because so far
that’s what happened, but that’s not a bet you’re allowed to make. The
only thing that a morally awake person to do when the worst thing
that’s ever happened is happening is try to change those odds.

I have spent most of my last few years in rooms around the world with
great people, many of whom will be refugees before this century is
out, some of whom may be dead from climate change before this century
is out. No guarantee that we will win, but from them a complete
guarantee that we will fight with everything we have. It is always an
honor for me to be in those rooms. It is the greatest honor for me to
be with you tonight.

No guarantee that we will win, but we will fight side by side, as long
as we’ve got. Thank you all so much.

Filed under: 350, Climate Challenge, global warming

Student and youth leaders are coming to Power Shift 2011 from across the country, and they represent a vast array of environmental issues. This blog comes student activist Talya Tavor, a student leader from Michigan State University.

When I was two years old, I was diagnosed with asthma. I’ve always had anywhere from one to seven different inhalers on me at any given time. I grew up thinking that everyone had asthma, and was shocked the moment I learned otherwise. It was that moment, the moment I realized that asthma was preventable, that without my neighborhood coal plant myself and others would breathe freely, that I became an activist.

Now I study at Michigan State University where we have the largest on-campus coal plant in the country. We are huge contributors to public health, environmental, social and economic problems (to name a few)—a fact that inevitably fueled my frustration and exacerbated my asthma.

When the Beyond Coal Campaign started up on our campus a year ago, I got involved immediately. At first, the majority of students on campus didn’t even know we had a coal plant. Many students’ understanding of energy ended with putting a plug-in an outlet, never knowing what they were breathing in each day.

A year into our campaign, and after countless hours and days of work, we’ve seen an amazing change in the campus mindset. We’ve had over 5,000 students sign petitions demanding a coal free MSU, and over 170 people from all across Michigan attend a Clean Energy Forum we co-hosted on campus. We’ve also established a strong relationship with the administration in our talks about transition to clean energy.

But with all of these successes, and more, we’ve still been unable to get the administration to make a commitment of moving our campus off of coal to 100% renewable energy. And that’s why I’m here at Power Shift this year.

I’m here because I know that as the future leaders of our nation, it is up to us to empower ourselves in order to create a future we’re proud of. I’m here because I know if anyone were ever able to make a difference, it would be a group of 10,000 passionate, dedicated youths at the largest grassroots organizing training in American history.

I believe we have the power to move forward. Power Shift is just the beginning for us, a launching point to make our movement stronger both at MSU and across the country.

Talya Tavor was born and raised in Illinois, and is now a Junior at Michigan State University. She serves as President of the MSU Sierra Student Coalition with the MSU Beyond Coal Campaign and is a leader in the 286 person Michigan delegation at Power Shift.

Filed under: 350, Americas, Campuses, Climate Justice, Coal, Coal Campaign, Political Participation, Power Shift, Youth Leaders

It’s the final day of the UN Climate Talks in Bangkok and the buzz here isn’t about the progress being made on a global treaty (not much), but about Power Shift.

Well, ok, to be honest, most delegates probably don’t know about the conference coming up in DC next weekend, but if all goes well, they will soon. After all, when it comes to saving the planet, the discussions and work that goes on in DC at Power Shift will be just as essential as the debates raging here at the UN.

Amongst civil society representatives, however, there is a building level of excitement about Power Shift and the growing climate movement.

Over the past three years, we have seen the explosion of the global climate movement. At Power Shift 2009, the organization I work with, 350.org, was little more than a small group of former students from Middlebury College and writer Bill McKibben. We spent the conference signing up students to take part in a global day of action on October 24 and Bill took the stage with a dancing 3, 5, and 0 to spread the most important number on earth: 350, as in 350 ppm, the safe level of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere that we’re already past.

Fast forward to October 24, when there were over 5,200 events in 182 countries calling for action to get to 350 ppm. CNN called it, “the most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history.” Since then, our movement has only grown. Last October, the Global Work Party brought together over 7,000 community events. 350.org now counts more than 500,000 supporters in 188 countries as part of our movement and its growing by the day. (Just yesterday, we merged with 1Sky in the US to build our movement even larger).

Power Shift will mark another turning point.

It’s a chance for us to put people at the center of our movement. We understand that this isn’t just about solar power and wind power anymore, it’s about people power.

Internationally, it couldn’t be a more important time to jumpstart our global movement for climate action. This December, the UN Climate Talks move to Durban, South Africa, home to a rich history of peoples struggles. Indeed, the struggle against apartheid, that global movement led by amazing South Africans such as Nelson Mandela and Bishop Tutu, can serve as an inspiration for us all. A climate meeting in Africa will not only show the devastating impacts of climate change on the world’s poor, but also the inspiring solutions that people can create together.

From the Middle East to the Midwest, people around the world are showing that the power of the people can overcome the people in power. For a global movement, Power Shift couldn’t come at a better time.

Filed under: 350, Power Shift, South Asia, United Nations, United States

Back during the fun and games of the Copenhagen climate conference, President Nasheed of the Maldives made a rousing speech to activists at 350.org, assuring them that: “I am here to tell you that down the road in the Bella Center the Maldives team is fighting to keep 350 in the negotiating text.”

Well, I am here to tell you that we failed. There was no mention of 350, or any other atmospheric CO2 concentration target, in the resulting Copenhagen Accord, and it stayed off the agenda at Cancun too. Like a drowning person, the more time that it spends out of sight the greater the danger that the target will never resurface at all. At the very least, surely, we should not let it die without making a splash.

What's that number again?

At Bangkok, from where I am writing this, countries are battling it out over the agenda they will negotiate over for the next few months until December’s next big ‘Conference of the Parties’ in Durban, South Africa. The key negotiating forum is the LCA, an ad-hoc group set up a few years back in Bali to map out a Longer-term framework for Co-operative Action (hence the initials). For three years thereafter 350ppm was in the vital negotiating text, albeit in square brackets (along with 450ppm and various other options) – but at Copenhagen it dropped off the agenda and has never returned.

When it comes to the long-term global goal, all the fighting has gone into keeping the option of 1.5C alive – rather than the two degrees target for limiting temperature rise that most of the big countries support. But 350 is actually a better target, and far more scientifically credible – that is why the international team led by Johan Rockstrom took 350ppm as its key climate change ‘planetary boundary‘. A certain temperature rise is not something we can achieve with any semblance of certainty, because the link between different emissions pathways and different temperatures is not known precisely thanks to varying estimates of the Earth’s ‘climate sensitivity’. A concentration target is something we can actually achieve by limiting emissions.

This is all very strange given that 350 remains the formal position of more than 100 countries, including small island states, African and least-developed nations. This is not surprising, because an unsafe climate – above 350 – will drown the islands and devastate the most vulnerable poorest countries first. But when I have raised the issue here in Bangkok, most delegates have rewarded me with blank looks. 350, they say? Wasn’t that something we forgot about more than a year ago?

Countries here in Bangkok are devoting great effort to keeping their key issues on the LCA agenda – so much so that many seasoned climate negotiators predict that the agenda for the meeting is all we will talk about all week. Some issues are small enough to fall through the gaps. But the issue of a global concentration target is so big that it sits above everything else – and therefore gets forgotten as well.

Unfortunately there is no groundswell for 350. The issue is dying. And once it drops out of the negotiating texts for any serious length of time, it will not get back in for years. There is a mechanism for a ‘review’ of the adequacy of the global goal in 2013 to 2015, but that seems an awful long way away to me.

I still think the issue of a global concentration target has legal legs, as it were. The Bali Action Plan (pdf) warned that:

delay in reducing emissions significantly constrains opportunities to achieve lower stabilization levels and increases the risk of more severe climate change impacts

It also recognised that:

deep cuts in global emissions will be required to achieve the ultimate objective of the Convention and emphasizing the urgency to address climate change as indicated in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

The word ‘urgency’ in the above preambular paragraph was footnoted to pages in the IPCC report which, if you look them up, specifically link temperature outcomes and emissions pathways to atmospheric CO2 concentration targets. So there is a strong precedent in the Bali Action Plan – which is still used as the basis for framing today’s negotiating agendas – for bringing 350 back into the game.

This won’t happen, however, unless pressure on negotiators comes from outside. The small islands and least developed countries need action from civil society, outside the conference centre walls, to give them the confidence to protect their – and the Earth’s – longer-term interests. 350 is missing in action, presumed dead. Please help us to find it and to breathe new life into what is surely the most important global target of all, before it is too late.