Applications are now available for SustainUS’s Agents of Change delegation to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations in Cancun, Mexico, November 29-December 10.

Applicants must be 18-26 years old at the start of the negotiations, and must be either U.S. citizens or permanent residents, or have been studying or working in the United States for at least six months at the time of application.

Selected applicants will join a diverse delegation of youth, including those both familiar with and new to the youth climate movement; from across the United States and beyond; including young scientists and engineers, policy specialists, grassroots activists, media and communications specialists; students, young professionals, and community volunteers; and more. We have limited, need-based scholarship money for youth from climate change-impacted communities (requires separate application, see link below).

Full delegation details and application materials are available at http://www.sustainus.org/COP16

Applications are due by 5 p.m. EDT on June 4th to agents@sustainus.org

Filed under: Americas, Carbon Trading, Climate and Forestry, Climate Justice, Climate Policy, Economics, global warming, Government, Impacted Communities, International Affairs, Offsets, Political Participation, Politics, Region, United Nations, United States

The morning that followed
Our message was echoed.
A failure! A failure!
My heart in despair.

The science lost, funding tossed,
No commitment in sight.
A stench of injustice,
The result: A failed plight.

“What more did you expect?”
Accusing voices chimed,
“Your efforts are a waste
Of carbon, cash and time”.

Is it a failure?
Were we mistaken?
How will we remember
Copenhagen?

How will we remember
Copenhagen?

I will remember the:

Forming of three fifty
In hundreds of states.
The Hundred thousand
Who marched till late.
Millions worldwide that stood,
And more that signed
In protest for the rights
For all Human Kind.

I will remember the:

Largest mobilisation
In world’s history.
Working in unity.
Despite culture or country.
Rising above divisions
In the “social order”;
Be religion, gender
Or a political border.

I will remember the:

Youth in the negotiations
Who brought heart and tears.
A champion for the voices,
The leaders needed to hear.
The Indigenous people
In the justice fight,
For our Mother’s Land to
Which we have equal right.

I will remember the:

Largest gathering
Of Heads in one room.
Of countries pleading,
To save them from doom.
Prayer to protect nations.
Have you seen such heart?
In a Global affair, it
Is a hopeful start.

But a start is all it is.

Do not ignore the Truth.
Two degrees is death to
Africa, the islands,
And our generation.
In our success there still
Remains a challenge,
A long way to go, it
Needs our dedication

It will take:

One goal.
Seven continents.
A hundred paths.
Thousands of leaders.
Millions of voices and
Billions of hearts.
To arrive at our
Destination.

Many may call this vision naive.
But perhaps naivety is all we have?
As long as there is love in the world,
We are on the right track.

Where there is love,
There is hope.
Where there is hope,
There is inspiration.
Where there is inspiration,
There is change.
And if there is change,
We can stop climate change.

The youth is more interested than anyone else in the future.

Until very recently, the discussion revolved around the kind of society we would have. Today, the discussion centers on whether human society will survive.

These are not dramatic phrases. We must get used to the true facts. Hope is the last thing human beings can relinquish. With truthful arguments, men and women of all ages, especially young people, have waged an exemplary battle at the Summit and taught the world a great lesson.

It is important now that Cuba and the world come to know as much as possible of what happened in Copenhagen. The truth can be stronger than the influenced and often misinformed minds of those holding in their hands the destiny of the world.

If anything significant was achieved in the Danish capital, it was that the media coverage allowed the world public to watch the political chaos created there and the humiliating treatment accorded to Heads of States or Governments, ministers and thousands of representatives of social movements and institutions that in hope and expectation traveled to the Summit’s venue in Copenhagen. The brutal repression of peaceful protesters by the police was a reminder of the behavior of the Nazi assault troops that occupied neighboring Denmark on April 1940.

But no one could have thought that on December 18, 2009, the last day of the Summit, this would be suspended by the Danish government –a NATO ally associated with the carnage in Afghanistan– to offer the conference’s plenary hall to President Obama for a meeting where only he and a selected group of guests, 16 in all, would have the exclusive right to speak.

Obama’s deceitful, demagogic and ambiguous remarks failed to involve a binding commitment and ignored the Kyoto Framework Convention. He then left the room shortly after listening to a few other speakers. Among those invited to take the floor were the highest industrialized nations, several emerging economies and some of the poorest countries in the world. The leaders and representatives of over 170 countries were only allowed to listen.

At the end of the speeches of the 16 chosen, Evo Morales, with the authority of his indigenous Aymara origin and his recent reelection with 65% of the vote as well as the support of two-thirds of the Bolivian House and Senate, requested the floor. The Danish president had no choice but to yield to the insistence of the other delegations. When Evo had concluded his wise and deep observations, the Danish had to give the floor to Hugo Chavez. Both speeches will be registered by history as examples of short and timely remarks. Then, with their mission duly accomplished they both left for their respective countries. But when Obama disappeared, he had yet to fulfill his task in the host country.

From the evening of the 17th and the early morning hours of the 18th, the Prime Minister of Denmark and senior representatives of the United States had been meeting with the Chairman of the European Commission and the leaders of 27 nations to introduce to them –on behalf of Obama– a draft agreement in whose elaboration none of the other leaders of the rest of the world had taken part. It was an antidemocratic and practically clandestine initiative that disregarded the thousands of representatives of social movements, scientific and religious institutions and other participants in the Summit.

Through the night of the 18th and until 3:00 a.m. of the 19th, when many Heads of States had already departed, the representatives of the countries waited for the resumption of the sessions and the conclusion of the event. Throughout the 18th, Obama held meetings and press conferences, and the same did the European leaders. Then, they left.

Something unexpected happened then: at three in the morning of the 19th, the Prime Minister of Denmark convened a meeting to conclude the Summit. By then, the countries were represented by ministers, officials, ambassadors and technical staff.

However, an amazing battle was waged that morning by a group of representatives of Third World countries challenging the attempt by Obama and the wealthiest on the planet to introduce a document imposed by the United States as one agreed by consensus in the Summit.

The representative of Venezuela, Claudia Salerno, showed with impressive energy her right hand bleeding from strongly slamming on the table to claim her right to take the floor. Her tone of voice and the dignity of her arguments will never be forgotten.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cuba made a vigorous speech of approximately one thousand words from which I have chosen a few paragraphs to include in this Reflection:

“The document that you, Mister Chairman, repeatedly claimed that did not exist shows up now. […] we have seen drafts circulating surreptitiously and being discussed in secret meetings…”

“…I deeply resent the way you have led this conference.”

“…Cuba considers the text of this apocryphal draft extremely inadequate and inadmissible. The goal of 2 degrees centigrade is unacceptable and it would have incalculable catastrophic consequences…”

“The document that you are unfortunately introducing is not binding in any way with respect to the reduction of the greenhouse effect gas emissions.”

“I am aware of the previous drafts, which also through questionable and clandestine procedures, were negotiated by small groups of people…”

“The document you are introducing now fails to include the already meager and lacking key phrases contained in that draft…”

“…as far as Cuba is concerned, it is incompatible with the universally recognized scientific view sustaining that it is urgent and inescapable to ensure the reduction of at least 45% of the emissions by the year 2020, and of no less than 80% or 90% by 2050.”

“Any argument on the continuation of the negotiations to reach agreement in the future to cut down emissions must inevitably include the concept of the validity of the Kyoto Protocol […] Your paper, Mister Chairman, is a death certificate of the Kyoto Protocol and my delegation cannot accept it.”

“The Cuban delegation would like to emphasize the preeminence of the principle of ‘common by differentiated responsibilities,’ as the core of the future process of negotiations. Your paper does not include a word on that.”

“This draft declaration fails to mention concrete financial commitments and the transfers of technologies to developing countries, which are part of the obligations contracted by the developed countries under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change […] Mister Chairman, by imposing their interests through your document, the developed nations are avoiding any concrete commitment.”

“…What you, Mister Chairman, define as ‘a group of representative leaders’ is to me a gross violation of the principle of sovereign equality consecrated in the United Nations Charter…”

“Mr. Chairman, I formally request that this statement be included in the final report of the works of this regrettable and shameful 15th session of the Conference of the Parties.”

The representatives of the countries had been given only one hour to present their views. This led to complicated, shameful and embarrassing situations.

Then, a lengthy debate ensued where the delegations from the developed countries put a heavy pressure on the rest to make the conference adopt the abovementioned document as the final result of their deliberations.

A small number of countries firmly insisted on the grave omissions and ambiguities of the document promoted by the United States, particularly the absence of a commitment by the developed countries on the reduction of carbon emissions and on the financing that would allow the South countries to adopt alleviating and adjustment measures.

After a long and extremely tense discussion, the position of the ALBA countries and Sudan, as President of the G-77, prevailed that the document was unacceptable to the conference thus it could not be adopted.

In view of the absence of consensus, the Conference could only “take note” of the existence of that document representing the position of a group of about 25 countries.

After that decision was made, –at 10:30 in the morning Denmark’s time– Bruno, together with other ALBA representatives, had a friendly discussion with the UN Secretary to whom they expressed their willingness to continue struggling alongside the United Nations to prevent the terrible consequences of climate change. Their mission completed, our Foreign Minister and Cuban Vicepresident Esteban Lazo departed to come back home and attend the National Assembly session. A few members of the delegation and the ambassador stayed in Copenhagen to take part in the final procedures.

This afternoon they reported the following:

“…both, those who were involved in the elaboration of the document, and those like the President of the United States who anticipated its adoption by the conference…as they could not disregard the decision to simply ‘take note’ of the alleged ‘Copenhagen Agreement,’ they tried to introduce a procedure allowing the other COP countries that had not been a part of the shady deal to adhere to it, and make it public, the intention being to pretend such an agreement was legal, something that could precondition the results of the negotiations that should carry on.”

“Such belated attempt was again firmly opposed by Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia. These countries warned that a document which had not been adopted by the Convention could not be considered legal and that there was not a COP document; therefore, no regulations could be established for its alleged adoption…”

“This is how the meeting in Copenhagen is coming to an end, without the adoption of the document surreptitiously worked out in the past few days under the clear ideological guidance of the US Administration…”

Tomorrow our attention will be focused on the National Assembly.

Lazo, Bruno and the other members of the delegation will be arriving at midnight today. On Monday, the Minister of Foreign Affairs will be able to explain in details and with the necessary accuracy the truth of what happened at the Summit.

Fidel Castro Ruz
December 19, 2009
8:17p.m.

As was being expected in the last few days of the COP, we do not have a “fair, ambitious and binding deal” in place. What we have is an agreement which is neither fair nor binding. It is being called the “Copenhagen Accord”.

“We underline that climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time. We emphasise our strong political will to urgently combat climate change in accordance with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.” Though the accord boldly talks about the adverse impacts of climate change and claims to sympathize with the vulnerable regions, it’s mostly talk at the end of the day.

“We agree that developed countries shall provide adequate, predictable and sustainable financial resources, technology and capacity building to support the implementation of adaptation actions in developing countries.” This is a great acknowledgement but $30 bn till 2012 and $100 bn till 2020 with no clue of where this money will come from and no agreement on how it will be distributed is not substantive at all.

“Annex I Parties to the Convention commit to reducing their emissions individually or jointly by at least 80 percent by 2050. They also commit to implement individually or jointly, the quantified economy-wide emissions targets for 2020 as listed in appendix 1, yielding in aggregate reductions of greenhouse gas emissions of X percent in 2020 compared to 1990 and Y percent in 2020 compared to 2005.” This is probably the best statement in the accord, given the amount of flexibility it provides. A heart-rendering display of sympathy towards the small island states and least developing countries!

“We call for a review of this Accord and its implementation to be completed by 2016, including in light of the Convention’s ultimate objective. This review would include consideration of strengthening the long term goal to limit the increase in global average temperature of 1.5 degrees” Yes, we need to agree on something that’s urgent, in 2016! We are working on 2 degrees as of now and have put 1.5 as part of a long-term goal!

For the first time, I felt extremely hollow. I have sympathized and felt bad for the vulnerable countries time and again, particularly after Tuvalu’s speech in the COP but questioning one’s own purpose of life and integrity is much more painful. Though climate-change equations can be solved with some math and science, the question of morality still remains open! I don’t know whether what we have arrived on, is “accord” or discord and deep down we all know what it is but I do know that if a fourteen year old kid in Kandivali, Mumbai understands what happened in Copenhagen, the movement is moving in the right direction.

Now whether we want to lose hope and agree to the “accord” or continue fighting for it is something only we can decide!

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declares that a fair deal can only be reached through further talks

In a speech immediately following President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stated unequivocally that negotiations would need to continue until 2010, to strike any kind of agreement that would enhance global action on climate change.

“To settle for something that would be seen as diminished expectations and diminished implementation,” he said, “would be in our view a very wrong message to emerge from this conference. We should therefore reaffirm categorically that our negotiations will continue on the basis of the Bali mandate.”

Singh also emphasised and re-emphasised the importance of equity in any global climate deal, adding, “any new regime will have moral credibility and authority only if it acknowledges that every citizen of this globe has an equal entitlement to the global atmospheric space.”

Like all the leaders who spoke before him, Singh described plans for voluntary domestic action on climate change. However, unlike President Obama, who suggested that “America has made our choice; we have charted our commitments,” and that the rest of the world must follow, Prime Minister Singh said that India would be willing to consider additional actions as part of a fair global deal.

Given the enduring gulf between the expectations expressed by world leaders this morning, it would seem highly unlikely that a deal can be concluded in the coming hours.

However, it’s not yet clear whether any of the political texts drafted earlier today could provide a high-level agreement that would satisfy all parties; or if not, how an alternative would now be developed.

Days and weeks before the negotiations began, a pale sense of gloom already crept into the minds of civil society and the negotiators themselves as the size of the task ahead of them grew gargantuan with every passing day. Nothing was done and now at the end, confusion and desperation prevails which is the result of a last ditch attempt to saving the COP and signing a deal.

As the news pours in, even a political deal seems to be a distant reality. India and China threaten to walk out of the negotiations for being continuously put under pressure to accept a Danish text and disobey the Kyoto and the BAP process. The third Danish was rejected and rightly so. Denmark is dragging its face through the mud to get a deal signed. The BASIC text which was to be reformed after taking into consideration the strong proposals by the African countries and the AOSIS is still in the docks. A COP15 Copenhagen declaration is expected that will only have the essentials with confirmed figures on issues like REDD that has seen good progress. Emissions cuts and finances are still in the dark and a shared vision under long term cooperative action may form partial Annex texts of the declaration.

The youth delegations and civil society is completely disappointed and angry at the negotiations and the world leaders who have once again failed to deliver. This is nothing less than a criminal offense on the world and the leaders have been caught red handed.

” Only a miracle can make sure we have a legally binging deal in Copenhagen” – Jairam Ramesh.

I am one of those people who needs to eat every two hours – my happiness, and consequently the safety of those around me {as my roommates learned when I had two hours of fasting left} is dependent on the number of things I shove down my throat! So no food for an entire day seemed impossible – and in the words of the long-term fasters – this is why we fast – to show that what we see is impossible is actually possible.

Here’s what I realised – I realised that if Obama, if Manmohan Singh, if all these heads of state had fasted with us, they would have understood the fate they were sentencing people to.

I realised that if they had been with us as we stood in the room civil society has been relegated to {still disgusted with the UNFCCC for that} and had seen people’s expressions as they wrote letters and lit candles they would have finally felt the truth of climate change the way we do.

My fast started at 2 a.m. on December 17 and ended at 2:00 a.m. on December 18. By 11 a.m. on the 18th I was midly hungry, by 2:00 p.m., restless and by the evening, a downright crank. I spent my last minutes carefully arranging my food on the table – noodles, cookies, chips and a muffin and literally counted the seconds to when I could eat.

And as I stuffed my face, my day made sense. There were hundreds of us in that room bound by the simple ‘token’ act of fasting. And it is that moment that it created that will see us through the bad deal we are going to get. So if my participating in a ‘populist’, ’stereotypically youth activitist’ act of ‘tokenism’ helped the climate movement then I say it was well worth it.

a) Maintain the consistence of the outcomes. Bali Action plan was adopted by all the nations of the world a couple of years back and to drift away from the road map and adopt new pathways only undermines the UNFCCC process.

b) Uphold the fairness of rules. Kyoto called for common but differentiated responsibility and here in Copenhagen we seem to be ignoring the fairness that is embedded in those principles.

c) Assess the practicality of the targets. ” A thousand mile journey starts with the first step”. ” Rome was not built in a day”. With these proverbs, he called for giving people hope by doing credible actions. Long term efforts are important but moving with a sense of practicality is important.

“China will honour the world with its actions”. The premier was hopeful of a deal in Copenhagen that will not undermine the efforts of developing nations.

The entire text can be read here.

My name is X, and in the year 2050 I will be X years old.

I am proud to represent the International youth climate movement.

Christina Ora, a 17 year old from the Solomon Islands, addressed the opening plenary last Monday. She said “I was born in 1992. You have been negotiating all my life. You cannot tell us that you need more time.”

We have worked the past two years promising to reach a conclusion in Copenhagen. Now it seems you will not get it done.

This is unacceptable, you should be ashamed.

The United Nations was created to solve humanitarian and social crises, but instead of standing united, you are now the Divided Nations.

Humanity can and must do better.

Mother Nature will not negotiate with us.

You must set targets to get us back below 350parts per million.

You must agree on fair and sufficient financing – 5-7% of GDP – to pay back the ecological debt to the most affected.

We the youth dream of a sustainable future shared by all humanity.

There is wisdom in the people’s hearts, and people are ingenious. We CAN solve this crisis – IF ONLY we choose to.

We do not accept the 3-degree deal that the current proposals on the table are bringing us to, and we support those nations who won’t sign this suicide pact.

We call on all nations not to accept anything that does not guarantee survival and climate justice for all.

There must be no decisions about us, without us. We refuse to have our futures sold and ‘offset’ by polluter lobbyists.

The Youth believe that you care enough for the future of your children and grandchildren to sign a legally-binding, fair and ambitious, inspiring agreement which reflects ‘the fierce urgency of now’.

Rest assured that we the youth will keep on working, and we will keep on pushing you harder and harder, until that necessary deal is sealed.

Thank you.

Youth Statement at COP15