Lost and damaged: International politics playing with our lives.

By Kendall Cook I found myself walking through the bourgeois neighborhood Saint-Germain, an ornate path to a prestigious institution where I was meeting an elite group of Loss and Damage experts.  There were about twenty to twenty five people in the room, all professionals over the age of thirty, half of which were sustainable development directors of various NGOs, the other, self-involved...

A people’s trial of Exxon Mobil

  By Hana Keegan Exxon Mobil, a massive fossil fuel corporation, has a lot of money to invest in scientific research about fossil fuels. Journalists have recently unveiled that, from as early as the 1970s, Exxon knew that burning fossil fuels would cause climate change. The corporation is now under criminal investigation in New York for not telling their investors and the public about these...

Should we COP out?

By Hana Keegan Unlike in the halls of the COP21, there are no suits, placards or microphones in the undecorated room of the Climate Coalition 21 (CC21) meeting. Established in preparation for the climate conference, the CC21 is an international coalition of civil society organisations that each identify themselves as members of the climate justice movement. On Rue Voltaire, a quiet, grey street...

A Message Home to the US: What Actually Happened at COP21

  by Morgan Heckerd Over the past two weeks 196 governments have spent hours within consultation rooms and plenary halls in efforts of reaching an agreement. They are here in Paris because they know that the era of emissions need to come to an end. The urgency of climate change is no longer a concept that they can deny. But– the developed countries have fallen short in adopting the...

Words, words, words: The Failure of the Paris Agreement

In reaction to the text that was released this afternoon, later passed tonight, the spirits today are all different. My heart is heavy and confused: torn between being part of a strong movement that is demanding climate justice while watching a plenary unfold that is delivering an unambitious and immoral deal made of false promises. The Paris agreement did not start here, or last year. Although...