Days 10-11 Policy Updates: The Storm Before the Storm

By Nathan Thanki with input from Katie O'Brien, Anjali Appadurai, and others. Photos by Rachel Wells In short, the negotiations are falling apart. We say that with utmost respect for the work being done by our negotiator allies and friends among civil society observers. It is not their fault. Nor is it the fault of the UNFCCC per se, though its Secretariat must shoulder some blame. The...

“You have never seen a coalition like this before”

by Lara Shirley and J. Taggart Wass Today, in an unprecedented show of solidarity between all elements of civil society, there was a massive walkout of COP19.  The action involved 800 members of civil society protesting the complete lack of progress in this year’s conference. The move was a culmination of many different frustrations: the corporate takeover of the UNFCCC space, the continued...

We Stand Together

By: Maria Alejandra Escalante, Graham Thurston Hallett, and Clémence Hutin (Young Friends of the Earth Europe) Our official expulsion from the United Nations Convention on Climate Change at COP19 has been confirmed: after a week of waiting, Christiana Figueres decided to respond to the various letters sent from the Philippine delegation, The Philippine Movement for Climate Justice statement with...

Capturing Climate Justice: Mary Robinson Foundation

Recently Earth in Brackets prevented a proposal to have YOUNGO (the youth constituency within the UNFCCC) sign on to a letter from the Mary Robinson Climate Justice Foundation. We had concerns about YOUNGO signing on as a constituency to this letter and did not wish to associate with this letter as a group. YOUNGO endorsement would obviously have implied that. Our concerns were on several levels:...

Day 9 Policy Updates: let’s talk about text, baby

by Lara Shirley We are entering the point in the COP where negotiation spaces are mostly closed to us, and draft decision text is being generated from the various areas of work. To see the documents published so far, go here. Things to look out for: there are some areas that haven't been concluded yet and are still undergoing negotiations. These are - ADP, finance, loss and damage, REDD+...