The result of the climate negotiations that took place the last two weeks in Copenhagen is very dissatisfactory. The Federation of Young European Greens (FYEG) condemns the lack of ambition and the fact that clear targets that science demands in order to combat climate change have been ignored. With the accord that is now on the table, climate disasters will become reality soon and within a decade millions of people will become climate change refugees. Developed countries are not paying their historical dept and let short term economic benefit prevail over long term sustainability.

Spokesperson Eline van Nistelrooij said: ‘This deal is not fair, it is not ambitious and it is not legally binding. It is everything that we do not need from the last generation that can turn the thigh. If it was Australia that is at the verge of sinking into the ocean, leaders would have run a little harder.’

The UN system, in which only governments have a say, has proven itself to be inherently malfunctioning. FYEG believes in the clear need for a system change in which all walks of civil society have an equal say in the decisions that are being made. No decisions about us without us!

In the last few weeks, social movements of all sorts have been able to gather, and have been able to agree on what should have been the real agreement. It is in these social movements that leadership already exists. They are our future leaders and we encourage governments to follow them in their lead.

We have got only one planet, our planet, and we will act now!

[ENDS]

Contact:
Eline van Nistelrooij, Spokesperson Federation of Young European Greens, +31 6-2629 6368

To Follow FYEG at COP15:
Blog: www.greenon2009.eu
Twitter: http://twitter.com/FYEG
FlickR: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fyeg-cop15/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=182473458698&ref=ts
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/FYEG

My name is Juan Carlos, and in the year 2050 I will be 64 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 two weeks ago. 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 all worked for the past two years with the promise of a strong deal in Copenhagen to safeguard our future. Now it seems you will not get it done.

This is unacceptable. We placed our trust in you. 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 350 parts per million. You must agree on fair, sufficient AND additional financing to pay back the ecological debt to those most vulnerable.
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 we just choose so. But this requires going beyond selfish national interests.
We support those nations who have refused to sign a suicide pact. We call on all nations not to accept anything that does not guarantee survival and climate justice.

The Youth believe that you care enough for the future of your children and grandchildren to sign a fair, ambitious and legally-binding agreement.

There will be no decisions about us, without us.
Rest assured that we will keep on working, and we will keep on pushing you harder and harder, until the deal is sealed.

Please do it now.

Thank you.

The end of the sit-in was described by a major German climate activist platform; “At two o’clock security issued an ultimatum: either the activists leave peacefully while security finishes their last coffee or be dragged out, put into jail and no civil society observer would be able to enter the Bella Center for the remainder of the conference.”

After a short discussion they decided to leave peacefully. One of the activists urged for “massive civil disobedience around the world” in response to the undemocratic and flawed negotiations.

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom: it is the argument of tyrants, it is the creed of slaves’

Today environmental and human lawyer, Polly Higgins, addressed the people present at the Klimaforum on the need to put in place clear laws to protect the planet. She strongly argued that you cannot pose a value on earth and treat natural resources and, more generally, the ecosystem as a disposable commodity. She said that the slavery era has not ended, it just changed its nature and scope. ‘

Instead of enslaving humans we have enslaved the planet”

The driving forces of this process are multinational corporations who can freely dispose of natural resources around the globe cos of the loopholes of the international system. Heavy extractive industries account for more than 78% of the worlds man-made GHGs.

Bolivia has recently proposed to draft a Mother Nature Declaration creating natural laws of the planet. This would include fundamental rights such as:

• The right not to be polluted
• The right to ecological integrity and diversity
• The right to the natural circle of life
• The right to a health and clean environment

We need to change the absolute wrong idea of ownership of the planet towards a stewardship of the planet where we would protect and preserve the natural environment against any sort of threats and dangers. It is not just about sustainability but more about responsibility towards Mother Earth if we want to guarantee our survival.

Sara is wearing winter clothes inside to avoid wasting energy and because she’s freezing more than usual since her seventeenth day without food. Yet her mind is clear, which may be needed, given that she in the last nine days were interviewed about a hundred times by television, radio and newspapers from all around the world. Read her message here: http://www.climatejusticefast.com/blog/entry/saras-press-conference-speech-8-december/

After three days without food, she lost the normal feeling of hunger. It is apparently possible to more or less get used to not eat, at least if you have great self-discipline. But now Sara starts to approach the critical threshold where it could be too dangerous to continue. When she finally stops she will need weeks to gradually get used to eating normally again.

Sara now gets a lot of extra time by not eating – since she do not have to buy food, cook food, eat food, or in any way deal with food. But she likes the smell of food more than usual and therefore she is cooking food for others now and then…

Today more than 3,000 others are joining the hunger strike, if only for one day. Among the participants are the president of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed, former Irish President Mary Robinson and Vandana Shiva.

Göran Hådén

Me: “Hi Nick”

Nick: “Hello”

Me: “What do you think of climate change?”

Nick: “Well climate change is obviously a hoax – the IPCC is controlled by 40 scientists in cahoots with powerful world leaders trying to create an authoritarian new world order.” [Nothing ironic about this]

Me: “Which scientists do you trust?”

Nick: “No scientist should be trusted”

Me: “Does the BNP have environmental policies?”

Nick: “Umm, yes, we have many like protecting some nature parks in the North of Britain”

Me: “If anthropogenic climate change turns out not to be a hoax, what will you do with the hundreds of millions of climate refugees wanting to escape to Britain’s cooler climate and disproportionately higher standard of life?”

Nick: “What we should really be talking about is peak oil and the damage this will do to the world economy and how the World Bank is already destroying livelihoods. This is the real…”

Me: “You didn’t answer my question, but I agree the World Bank is undemocratic and forces neoliberal ideologies on developing nations. Anyway, I thought forcing crazy ideologies on lower class neglected individuals was something you were in favour of? But can we get back to the point, what would you do with all the climate refugees who have lost everything because of short-sighted selfish Western elite minorities trying to protect their wealth and power? When they request asylum in Britain as a result of the escalating climate related wars for rapidly diminishing food, water and resources, what will you do?”

Nick: “Well, I won’t let them in. Obviously if they come to Britain they will consume more and we cannot let this happen. This would mean less for us.”

Me: “So you don’t agree with contraction and convergence where the West consumes and emits less whilst poorer nations are allowed to develop, hopefully achieving equity in the near future?”

Nick: “Don’t be ridiculous. China already emits more than any other country. They don’t need to develop.”

Me: “Actually, China’s per capita emissions are far below that of Britain and the US. Are you suggesting Chinese individuals must consume less than British individuals to make up for the size of their population?”

Nick: “Yes, of course, per capita emissions don’t make sense.”

Me: “Just out of interest, considering my dad is Canadian and my mum is half Spanish, would you deport me if you were in charge?”

Nick: “Of course not, you have European roots.” [How the fuck does he know?]

Me: “So your deportation policy is based on skin colour. Do you also think all the white people who have colonised the globe over the last couple of centuries should be deported back to Europe?”

Nick: “No, they [non white people] should be thankful of our generosity. We gave them technologies they never could have invented. We gave them civilisation.”

Me “OK, I don’t think I can continue with this conversation.”

I managed to bypass his extended sweaty limb. No offence Nick, but I’d rather not shake hands with a fascist. What a miserably deluded waste of space.

We are heading for a deal that leaders will be hail as a success but will not protect the most vulnerable people or avoid catastrophic climate change. Poor countries cannot be expected to sign a ‘suicide pact’ in Copenhagen. This is about survival.

We stand in solidarity with the countries marginalised in the climate negotiations, with those most affected by climate change and with the climate movement here in Copenhagen trying to ensure civil society voices are heard. World leaders have two days to stand up and deliver the leadership the world is demanding.

We don’t need more empty talk or finger pointing. They know what a fair, ambitious and binding deal looks like and they know we are desperately waiting for it. World leaders have heard our call – the call is clear.

Civil society is locked out from the negotiations but even from outside we can see the truth about what is happening. We will not be fooled by spin and our voices will not be silence. World leaders have two days to stand up and deliver the leadership the world is demanding. They know what a fair, ambitious and binding deal looks like!!!

After the leaked ‘Danish Text’ now another document has been leaked. This time it is even worse as it are the last days of the Conference and there are nearly delegates from civil society present inside the Bella Center to criticize the text and support the countries that will be affected by the crime committed by this proposal of a text.

As you can read here the text proposes a limit of 550ppm and a 3 degree rise in global temperature whilst it is very clear that for the survival of our climate and the survival of the countries that have little to do with this climate crisis there should be a limit of 350ppm and a 1.5 degree rise in global temperature.Yet again the developed countries are only busy with their own luxurious survival whilst it should be very clear that yet again it will be the Global South that will be suffering from these actions, from these kind of atrocities.

Whilst this COP should be all about the survival of our climate and global solidarity  for the last few weeks it has been more about individualism and protection of the national interests by the Developed Countries. This is a shame. And even worse. This is a crime. A crime against Climate Justice.

He began saying that it was a source of great joy to be with young people and summed up the key finding of the present climate science: there is evidence of a warming up of the system which is most likely to be related to human action. He highlighted the danger that would face the world with a severe climate change and linked it as a threat to peace. He asked us to use the media effectively, to spread our message out of the Bella Center during COP15, and after: “When you go back, make sure that you don’t rest.”

At the end of the meeting, a young activist asked a question on nuclear energy. Apparently for Dr Pachauri, nuclear wastes, nuclear accidents, threats that large area could be contaminated for ages do not represent such an issue. “Nuclear energy is a serious option” he said adding, that it should be carefully assessed, and that not all every countries should use it… Pathetic… Hearing this I was thinking: oh yeah let’s swap a threat for another, forget about the climate change threat, que viva el nuclear threat!

Benoît

In order to keep a safe climate we need to stabilize the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere bellow 350 ppm. This implies we need to emit at least less than 1000 Gt of CO2 during the 2000 – 2050 period. Since we’ve been emitting around 330 Gt until now, we have a 670 Gt budget to emit during the 2010 – 2050 period.

Now, how do we spend that budget, and who has the right to emit what? Today, the USA per capita emissions are around 20t CO2 / year, while the per capita emissions of Burkina Faso are less than 0,5 t CO2 /year. Thus the average emissions of an American are enormously higher than a Burkinabe. During a side event of COP15, the GermanWatch Institute gave an instructive presentation of what the pass way of annual average emission per capita could look like for different countries. The following graph shows an equal per capita distribution of the remaining 670 Gt budget for the 2010-2050 period: the USA face a drastic reduction of their emissions.

Source: Thomas Spencer, Germanwatch, « climate science 2009 » presentation

Increase the number of farmers, reduce meat consumption, eat local seasonal products, reinforce local economy, develop delocalized renewable energy production and adapt energy consumption to the production capacity : all this implies a fundamental transformation of rich country societies, and a transformation of the American society in particular. Remember the H.W. Bush famous quote “the american way of life is not negotiable”… well hopefully, with Obama, now it is, because otherwise we’ll be getting into troubles!

Benoît