Archive for 2010 December

I’ve had a hard time connecting the last few days.  It’s been busy.  A whole lot of nothing is happening in Cancun.  There are moments of inspiration amid days of information overload, but the negotiations are slow and it’s very unclear what they will lead to.  Canada is being quiet but unhelpful, and all indications are that when push comes to shove, Canada will stand in the way of any real progress.     Read more »

Okay, so we’re number four.

I’ve never been to a COP before, but I’ve been involved in climate change issues long enough to recognize a very sad trend from fighting to prevent it to squabbling over the money to deal with it.  Far more energy is being spent today to discuss the costs of adaptation, primarily for countries that have had very little to do with causing it.  More and more effort is spent by scientists not in evaluating the broad implications of a warming planet, but in evaluating the much more narrow human-scale impacts it will cause.     Read more »

Pembina Institute has been great at this conference and as a back up organization with tremendous resources you might want to look at.  They have a new report just out this morning that might be of interest, pointing out how Canada is not keeping up with the United States.

[Adriana is blogging from the UN climate change negotiations in Cancun, in an attempt to keep the Canadian delegation honest.]

Today is a slow day for negotiations in Cancun.  There are no plenaries.  The negotiators are working on details in small groups, many of them closed to observers.

World Youth have taken the day.  As we arrived this morning, perhaps a hundred of them were lined up along the path to the shuttle buses in turquoise shirts bearing the quote

You have been negotiating all my life.
You cannot tell me you need more time.

It is attributed to Christina Ora, a very courageous young woman from the Solomon Islands who was in Canada last year to reach out to youth and others around the world.  She faces the knowledge that her home will almost certainly disappear beneath the sea this century, one of the innumerable tragedies we are inflicting on future generations, and on vulnerable people even today.     Read more »