Never Give Up fighting for justice
When attending a COP it’s easy to feel lost and alienated. But having Yvo de Boer holding the Young FoEE demandsfor Annex 1 countries did brighten up the day yesterday.
This morning the Action Team ran a teaser action for the Flood for Climate Justice which will be taking place tomorrow. Dressed up in blue ponchos, we occupied a cool spot at the entrance of the media room and put up messages on placards which denounced offsetting and invited people to join the Flood for Climate Justice tomorrow at 10 am at the Klimaforum. There was one particular delegate who was quite irritated by our message that offsetting is a false solution. Offsetting ISN’T a solution for the climate crisis though: emissions should be reduced domestically and not by investing in projects in developing countries. The only truth about offsetting is that it is a magic tric which proves the refusal of industrialised countries to take up their historical responsibility!
“I actually completely reject the notion of a debt or reparations or anything of the like,” said Jonathan Pershing, head of the US delegation this morning. “For most of the 200 years since the Industrial Revolution, people were blissfully ignorant of the fact that emissions caused a greenhouse effect. It’s a relatively recent phenomenon.” Saying so, he didn’t think of the fact that the very existence of some affected communities is in peril and he didn’t talk about the sea level rise and extreme droughts which are threatening whole countries. I think that not ANY head of delegation or ANY annex 1 country has the right to deny climate debt. The USA have the capacity to pay its debt and it just should not shy away from its responsibility!
This morning the policy group also dropped our “position paper in a bottle” in the
postboxes of the different delegations. The policy team is very closely following the negotiations and helping to develop a common youth position. Later today the Act Now team will run again a flood teaser action at the Klimaforum to encourage more people to join in the Flood for Climate Justice tomorrow.