The Daily Climate: Youth Delegates to Climate Talks Blog Their Amusement, Worry, Hope

by Emily Gertz

Published December 04, 2008 @ 08:36AM PST

"Oh dear… The BINGOs are at odds with the TUNGOs and the RINGOs over the NAMAs and the NAPAs. RFUK is concerned about what REDD is going to do to PAM. But at least the SIDS are keen on LULUCF.

If you thought the science behind global warming was dauntingly complex and believed “low albedo” was something to do with sex drive (it means poor reflection of sunlight) then the UN climate talks in Poznan are not for you."

-- Joshua Kahn Russell, US youth delegate to the UN climate conference

Young adult delegates to the UN climate talks in Poland are blogging the freshest perspectives on this annual global warming diplomo-fest. Unencumbered by any need to present a journalistic pose of objectivity, or to answer directly to governmental higher-ups, the youth bloggers I've found so far are calling it like they see it.

Canadian Jasmeet Sidhu is growing dismayed as the talks already begin to bog down in petty arguments and weak proposals:

After witnessing several plenaries so far where Saudi Arabia defended the dignity of oil, Canada and Russia using the fact that they have cold winters as an excuse and Japan using precious plenary time to get into a petty fight with China over who has quicker showers, I couldn't help but think - what are we doing here?

As someone who is still relatively new to climate negotiations and international dealings, I was absolutely shocked and amazed at the activities and the comments made by some countries, clearly showing that indeed they do not have responding to the challenges faced by climate change as their top priority.

This may as yet be an unfair distinction, but save for a few countries (mostly small-island states who are experiencing the effects of climate change now) it seems that everyone seems to be avoiding coming to a solution, and coming up with "save-face" policies that makes them look productive whilst all that they are doing is prolonging the process.

"Sitting at the back of the large plenary session and staring up at my country on the big screen tvs, I couldn't help shake my head," writes Jasmeet. "Even Belarus talked about plans to cut emissions by at least 10%. No offense to those from the Belarus, but I feel that when Belarus is besting Canada over environmental issues, than that is a serious problem." [Emphasis mine.]

Compared to Jasmeet's experience as a citizen of a developed economy, the India youth delegation has brought some different concerns to Poznan. "India came to the talks with a strong case of climate justice in the world and any breakthrough in the negotiations seemed possible only after resolving this grave issue," Chaitanya Kumar writes. But they still share the worry that the older adults are fiddling while the world burns -- taking their future chances for health and prosperity with it:

Though the Youth Delegation supports the point of climate equity, it realizes that the future of youth is at stake.  Therefore it will do whatever it can to ensure that the Indian government hold true to its promises of sustainable development and climate justice back at home.  The youth too, are tired of the blame game that’s being played since the past few years. The Government though, has made its stance clear on technology transfer and adaptation by calling for aid from developed countries and a UN framework for easy implementation of the two in the SBSTA meeting.

The U.S. youth delegation has been seething in equal parts over the position of the Bush administration's delegation to the conference, and the administration's last-minute rewrites of environmental protection regulations at home -- such as yesterday's EPA decision to largely allow mountaintop coal mining operations to dump mining waste in streams.

"The US government delegation got out in front in making clear its intention to advocate half-solutions and construct roadblocks to science-based targets less than four hours into the COP," writes David Sievers. "In an opening press conference, Harlan Watson, lead negotiator for the US, essentially put forth nuclear energy and (heretofore non-existent) Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) as the items that the US has to offer to the negotiation."

But they are thrilled in equal measure at hopeful developments -- yes, Virginia, there are hopeful developments -- including the announcement by Bank of America that it would cease to finance companies mining coal via environmentally devatating mountaintop removal, which the US youth climate movement has been calling for: "For reals! This is freaking BIG!!" blogs "Sparki." "It was less than three weeks ago, we had the No Coal Day of Action with over 70 events calling out the banks for their funding of mountaintop removal (and parts of the coal life cycle). I just want to say thanks for all your hard work, support and solidarity."

Image: "Introducing the International Youth Delegation for COP 14, or at least half of them. We are five hundred youth from fifty different countries, representing the privileged and the disenfranchised, the global north and the global south. We come together, representing millions more back home." Source: It's Getting Hot in Here.