Great new full day full!

There are no less than four FoE events going on today. A photo exhibit and concert organised by FoE Spain; a press release on Climate witnesses taking the concept of climate change to the level of social structures; FOEI’s side event against carbon trading and the release of our new report ‘A Dangerous Obsession’. An ‘Annex I states of Carbon Traders’ – dollar was made to promote the event. We started of this morning by handing them out to delegates, asking things like ‘Hi sir/madame, would you like a carbon dollar? Yes? Well, in that case you’d like to be aware of their negative consequences on the climate. We would like to invite you to our side event, where we’ll explain more about it!’

In between following meetings, press conferences and side events we prepared our tomorrow’s action. As tomorrow being the last day of climate talks before the true ‘exam’ in Copenhagen and so little progress made, we decided to help

country delegates out by writing progress reports for them. That way they know where they need to work on, revising for the final exams in Copenhagen. There’s no excuse for no succeeding in Copenhagen……and Young Friends of the Earth Europe does not accept the lowering of ambitiouns that seem to be happening this week!

Now we are taking off to the fundraising concert for Friends of the Earth Spain - all proceeds to the Big Ask climate campaign!

I love the way we are visible - even in Barcelona’s music scene !

Negotiations under the Kyoto Protocol continued yesterday evening after the chair has held informal consultations with Parties throughout the day. The majority of the remaining time here in Barcelona will now be allocated to discussing targets for Annex I countries. The Bolivian delegation reminded the industrialised countries, though, that real progress on their targets has to be made rapidly. The ball is at the side of the Annex I countries to ACT NOW.

Ambassador Lumumba of Sudan, representing the G77 and China, poses with Young Friends of the Earth to move some targets!

A delegate from Slovenia shows her support for moving the EU's targets, posing with Duncan

YFoEE supported the demand from developing countries to move forward on the Annex I target discussions. We walked through the conference halls wearing targets - moving - and talking to delegates explaining that we wanted to see movement from the industrialised countries, as well. We exposed the current ridiculously weak emission reductions pledges made by Canada, the EU, Japan, the USA and Australia. We also distributed stickers again demanding Annex I countries to commit to at least 40% targets without offsets to pressure them to significantly scale up their current pledges.

Delegates from Non-Annex I countries expressed their happiness about us showing support for their demands from the civil society side and were all putting on our stickers. We had a short discussion with Ambassador Lumumba from Sudan who is currently the coordinator of the G77 and China group. He told us how glad he was to see so many young people here in Barcelona and that it is very important to show that we stand behind them. In return, we asked him to stay strong in the negotiations and fight for the right solutions which will secure a safe future for young people all over the world.

Kyoto targets prepare to die... or not?

Yesterday’s top topic at the Barcelona negotiations was the refusal of the African countries to continue discussing anything else under the Kyoto Protocol track unless Annex I countries put forward their targets for the second commitment period. Hence, the YFoEE team and a handful of young people from FoE Spain spent half the night at the hostel preparing banners, flyers and other action props to react to this development and express our solidarity with the African countries. Around 23h the night before, even some senior FoE EWNI campaigners joined in - offering their help and providing beer and wine.

Around 7a.m. in the morning, we left for the conference centre equipped with all the action materials we had produced during the night. We created an image with targets tied around people’s necks and a ‘Grim Reaper’ representing Death (a.k.a. Annex I countries) walking around with a scythe - symbolising industrialsed countries’ attempts to kill the (legally binding) Kyoto targets. We held up two banners saying:”Annex I - Don’t Kill Kyoto Targets” and “Min. 40% Cuts - No Offsets”. We were also handing out flyers and small stickers with the slogan: “Stand With Africa - Kyoto Targets Now!”. See pictures of the action at www.flickr.com/photos/participaciontierra and www.flickr.com/photos/64997830@N00/

YFoEE peeps work on 'Don't Kill Kyoto Targets' banner

Our action was the first allowed inside the conference centre. Delegates stopped en-route to various meetings to take pictures, put our stickers on their suits and chat. Reactions were mostly positive, many people thanked us for showing civil society support for the position of the African countries. Of course, some Annex I representatives also thought that our action was ridiculous. We will continue to do everything we can to make them understand that is actually their behaviour that is ridiculous and irresponsible.

We are all anxious to see how negotiations will move forward today. So far, all official meetings for the Kyoto Protocol negotiations have been cancelled, due to Africa’s refusal. There are rumours in the corridors that this suspension of negotiations could also spread to the meetings on long-term co-operative action under the Convention, depending on how informal consultations under the Kyoto Protocol track develop.

Update from Act Now Team on Barcelona Climate negotiations. First day of the conference and already a world of things to report you about.

Today’s opening ceremony was set up by the Spanish ministry. The whole was pretty impressive. Different prominent speakers took the floor: the President of Catalunia Generalitat, the Vice President of Spain, and the Danish Minister of Climate and Energy who will also be the COP President in Copenhagen. But especially the media presence was a bomb. After the ceremony media attention dropped, but still there is much more camera and reporting movement than there was in Bonn.

Although police security is very present outside the building, NGO’s are unstoppable in putting the word out. Avaaz welcomed all delegation members the first day of the conference at the entrance with 1000 ringing alarm clocks. Great image, and sound! Later during the day also Oxfam International and WWF did their share. Tomorrow it’s YFoEE’s turn! Our theme will be the Killing of Kyoto Targets. The plan is to line up characters holding cardboard targets and have the grim reaper (aka Annex I countries) threatening to kill them. Passers by (delegation members) will be asked to create a human shield protecting the targets. 

On the policy level there is an interesting evolution regarding the African Union. Their delegation seems to refuse to continue negotiating until specific topics are worked out. Nobody really knows if this is a turning point in developing countries putting their foot down, or just a coming together of circumstances. Definitely to be continued!

To close with, some very encouraging words from a side event on the South perspective on the Copenhagen outcome. Words of Ambassador Ibrahim Lum (G77 and China coordinator)

Barcelona, Spain: Saturday 31st October, just before the beginning of the United Nations Climate Change Talks, hundreds of citizens of Barcelona gathered in a call to for climate action. Peacefully and to the tune of samba music, the people of all ages took to the streets with a mass of banners.

The protest built up into more and more, with about 1000 people arriving at the city hall, to tell the government ‘El climate no está en venta - The climate is not for sale!’ It was quite unusual to for so many people to come together in Spain to protest against climate change, even less so when the Barcelona Football team is playing at the same time!!  The street march was organised by several environmental groups, including Friends of the Earth Spain (Amigos de la Tierra) and Ecologistas en Acción.

After only a few hours sleep (yet again) we dressed up as country leaders (yet again) with new faces amongst the class! Some countries did pass the ’school report on leadership, as they have been leading by example, others have been down right appalling, slowing down the group as a whole.

For example, yesterday (Thurs 10th June) Japan finally announced their 2020 targets for reducing their CO2 emissions. They have promised a 14% reduction but, it turns out Japan is only keen on reducing 14% from their 2005 CO2 levels, instead of the standard 1990 level! So really, the second biggest economy in the world - Japan - is only aiming for 8% below 1990 levels. What?! We need a minimum of 40% by 2020 to avoid dangerous climate change! As you can imagine, these countries  unfortunately failed on this school report.  Meanwhile, our Central- and  South-American counterparts have been behaving much better! El Salvador and Paraguay both have been smart students, understanding the different approaches to Reducting Emissions from Deforestation and Degredation (REDD), as well as caring for others by talking about human rights.

http://www.foeeurope.org/climate/actionpdfs/report.pdf”

After we’d made a racket outside, we set up a space inside the UNFCCC conference, minus the masks - because as we all know, political impersonations are a security threat!

The response to this whole action was great! We made heaps of people laugh, photos were continuously being taken, and lots of delegates came back to ask for a copy of the school report!

Imagine this;

12:00 Clock, a park just a stone throw away from the Martim hotel, 350 people in white suits forming a human banner.

This was the scene this morning, people gathered and together we formed a human banner, urging world leaders and their negotiators to start acting on climate justice. Have you ever seen 350 people, dressed up in white suits and green hats, lying in the grass in the lashing rain, making a loud tck, tck, tck noise. You just wonder what a random person would be thinking in passing this scene, while training the dog?

As the raindrops kept falling on our heads, we shot some great images of us forming this banner. The image shows a exclamation mark, with the dot forming a ticking clock.

As the first negotiation week here in Bonn draws to an end, this was the best message- time is running out and in 6 months World leaders need to deliver a strong and just climate deal. As it seems now negotiators are a long way towards reaching this goal, that the world and it’s people are desperately needing.

They should act now and we should get this message across to them. If for this it helps to lie in the wet grass for more than 30 minutes and get soaking wet, then I gladly do so, with a smile…

See the video

Aerial picture 350.org Bonn june 6th

Young Friends of the Earth Europe celebrated a marvelous ‘Beach Party’ starring by A. Merkel. The world’s poorest people are already suffering the effects of climate change, even though they have done the least to cause it. The Polynesian island Tuvalu is destined to disappear beneath the ocean with rising sealevels. 12000 people are planning their own evacuation. And there are more climate refugees to come … So we ask A. Merkel as leader of an industrialized country ‘What is your evacuation plan?’

Sadly we are not allowed to show our video inside the UN conference hall, so we went outside collecting postcards signed by offical delegates, un-staff and members of ngo’s to send them to Chancellor Merkel. We will continue this action until the negotiations in Copenhagen to see if our demands will be incorporated by the world leaders.

Here you can see the the forbidden ‘radical’ video:

“Politicians have not done their homework” was the message of the detention action in front of the conference centre 5th June. Leading politicians had to stay for detention after school to learn more about fair climate politics. The students had to repeat “Climate justice now” and “I will reduce my carbon emissions by 40% by 2020″.  You could meet Merkel, Sarkozy and Berlusconi. Even Fredrik Reinfeldt, Swedens primeminister, was there. Nearly. Activists from Young Friends of the Earth Europe had dressed in school-uniforms and masks to point out that the recent state of negotiations is totally unsufficient and unjust. For more photos klick here.