Check out great video on-line from the U.N. climate negotiations in Cancun, Mexico. The UNFCC.int event website has live streaming from the event, and yesterday’s events available on demand.
Watching climate negotiations in Cancun online can be pretty inspiring, like a TED Conference video binge meets planetary survival think-tank/diplomat theater.
On-line you’ll find the Climate Action Network gave a good summary of what’s on-the-table at negotiations. “Cancun can be be the calm after Copenhagen’s political storm, a calm where we can get some real progress made for poor people” said Tim Gore of Oxfam, who notes that the UN process allows poor countries to be heard.
Look for the inspirational nature video, (about 46:30 minutes into the very interesting Opening Plenary/ Welcoming Ceremony.)
So why not play five hours of this content while you clean your kitchen. Or better yet, invite friends over for a watch party!
To spice it up, play the Cancun Watch Party Drinking Game. Suggested rules: gather friends and favored beverages. Watch the event on-line and drink when you hear the word “mitigate” “transparency” or “350 parts per million.” Drink every time you feel patriotic. Drink if you have lovin' feelings for the U.N.. Make a toast to Mother Earth every time you hear “Rights for Mother Earth.” And so forth.
Seriously, though, people should watch the Cancun process, because the more public attention that is on this process, the more our political leaders will want to do something. Like it or not, these UN proceedings is the most serious forum for dealing with the climate crisis at the moment. We need an educated citizenry on the Climate issue, so please gather and tune in!
Here are some of the topics being negotiated. UN climate chief Christiana Figueres talked about four places to make a deal: climate adaptation measures, clean technology transfer to poor countries, forestry protection, and creation of an international climate fund.
Cancun is a U.N. meeting of countries that signed the Kyoto Protocol to assess what can be done to make it work better. Or according to the official website jargon, “COP16/CMP6 is the 16th edition of the Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP) and the 6th Conference of Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties of the Kyoto Protocol (CMP). “Parties” refers to all the national states that signed and ratified both the international treaties...”
The meeting is being held at a big resort in Cancun, on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. Delegates and media are meeting at the Moon Resort, while other events happen around the city. Civil society will be given space to get their ya-ya’s out, in a 5000 person auditorium billed as an Expression Zone. That’s an improvement to many international meetings where the public and NGOs are kept away by barricades and tear gas.
Still, it’s a private party compared to Cochabamba. The Cochabamba Summit was far more vital and interesting than Copenhagen. Held in April 2010 as a response to Copenhagen, the World People’s Summit on Climate Change and Rights for Mother Earth was a model of inclusive participatory democracy and open process.
Cochabamba created the vast, intelligent and radical Cochabamba Accords that Bolivia is trying to include into the negotiations this year in Cancun. The Cochabamba Accords call for a goal of temperature increase as 1 or 1.5 degrees, rather than 2 degrees, as industrialized nations favor. (We have 1 degree increase already and have seen lots of change. So I agree, let’s aim low, 1%!!!!)
The Cochabamba Accords also passed the Resolution on the Rights of Mother Earth. Bolivian President Evo Morales is the world’s first indigenous president. He is a sturdy voice in climate leadership and in bringing indigenous thinking into the political sphere. It may seem dreamy to talk about granting Rights to Mother Earth, but some view this as a central idea to healing humanity’s relationship with the Earth. We must see the Earth as alive, worthy of respect and protection. Follow this discussion on the lively blog at pwccc.wordpress.com.
I hope for positive movement of the Rights for Mother Earth in Cancun. I hope the US delegation supports this language. It would not cost anything and would be a place to compromise in a culturally respectful manner.
I hope some good progress comes from Cancun. Yet it’s hard not to feel dissatisfied by that this is the best government can do. Humanity’s survival hangs in the balance, and they struggle to agree on un-ambitious actions that won’t stop the problem. Politicians don’t deal with the approaching climate Tsunami, because it’s terrifying effects are in the future, while economic concerns nip at the heels this moment. US politicians are particularly irresponsible, especially since the US is the number one carbon polluter in historical terms. Unfortunately, the US congress has yet to pass Climate Legislation, and so the US remains “all talk and no walk” in terms of having legal obligations to cut carbon emissions. Time for the US to get on it!
The annual climate negotiation’s most useful function may be the annual focusing of the world’s scattered ADHD attention on the Climate Crisis. Earthlings take an annual moment to thinking about the Big Problem That May End Us All. Last year at this time, the world’s media was abuzz about a summit in Copenhagen. That gathering disappointed many, and made association with the process a political liability. Who knows, maybe they’ll get more done this year with calmness and less political hubbub.
We must stop the Climate Crisis, or everything we love is destroyed. The Sermon on the Mount will go into nonexistence! So does Glee! Runaway climate change means the end of the world as we know it and probably human extinction! So let's get on it, people!
People of the world want action on the Climate Crisis. Check out incredible aerial art made by 350.org and thousands of people as evidence. May we witness solutions to Climate Crisis in Cancun and in our own lives.
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