Meeting centres change – message change

So the way the international youth climate movement works is that we have a “spokes” meeting every morning where each spoke is a representative of a working group. These spokes all have a vote on all proposals that have to be submitted up to half an hour before. However now that 3/4 of youth are shut out of the conference because of the badge system, we’ve relocated our spokes-meeting to a college campus close enough to the centre.

Yesterday we had a really inspiring press conference – I worked on it for ages, getting a really good media clip to show to people, brainstorming the messaging, contacting the press, then I had an invite from the Irish Embassy to a reception with buffet, so I ran out at 7pm, got in at 7.30pm, had a glass of wine a a brief chat with Liz MacManus and John Gormley, thanking the minister for being the first minister to confirm he’d come to our EU ministers addressing EU Youth meeting, then ran back for 8pm saying I had a press conference to go to. I was the only male in that reception who wasn’t in a suit and boy did I get some odd looks! Don’t care. When speaking to the European Youth Forum about dress code for this conference they said to embrace the fact you’re a youth delegate and don’t feel pressured to wear a suit. I personally feel that a tie is an upside-down noose. So anyways I ran back to the Bella Centre getting there for 8pm and was not let in.

I had a badge! I now have a secondary badge for today cause the YFJ recognise how much work I’m doing. And I couldn’t get back to my press conference…. Gah!!

Not happy

But seemingly it went really well – we had an exclusive video message from Severn Suzuki which was really empowering

Today we had our spokes-meeting. We agreed on the following coherent messaging points to all our actions and demands -
- Bring back the global CO2 -or equivalent- concentration below 350ppm as soon as possible.
- Call upon every rich country to pay their climate debt.
- Provide 5% of Annex I countries‘ GNP for adaptation and mitigation developing countries, in addition to ODA.
- Provide 400 billion dollars public finance by developed countries for fast track financing
- Reduce at least by 45% Green House Gas emissions for Annex I countries by 2020 on the basis of 1990 level, with no offsets.
This is stronger than it was before.

Now we’re getting addressed exclusively by Naomi Klein – she believes in sealing a good deal not just any deal. So far it seems that the US/Canada and those country that want to get out of the Kyoto Protocol have been arm-twisting the developing nations – they have important groups such as G77, AOSIS (alliance of small island states), africa (bar south africa who has been disappointing) and others. Many indigenous groups such as delegates from Ecuador are disappointed that their text to a legally binding need to consult with them before their forests would be turned into commodifiable carbon sinks. Other groups have called this whole agreement the colonisation of the last free spaces of the world – the rainforest and the atmosphere

As one delegate puts it, the money being pushed at developing states now, in order to seal a bad deal, is the equivalent of the blankets given to native American for the island of Manhattan!

One of the AOSIS ministers said that what we’re currently working towards is a benign genocide.

A lot of really tough outlines right now!

Oooh – Naomi Klein just made a really interesting comparison between the drugs apartheid for ART drugs that greatly enhance the life expectancy for those with HIV/AIDS, that are only available to those who can afford them and said that how come green technologies are not seen like this – the injustice for countries to be able to heal themselves will be limited by those who can afford them.