US submits views on future climate agreement

by nathan thanki Since the Durban round of UN climate talks in 2011, governments have been struggling towards an eventual global agreement to address climate change (ideally, some say they're just negotiating the establishment of more markets). The negotiation process, named the "ADP" (the D stands for Durban) is mandated to conclude in Paris in December 2015 with some kind of outcome. The exact...

Designing for Activism

by nathan thanki There are a surprising many similarities between designing on a computer and designing “in reality,” with bodies instead of pixels. Designing a poster requires many of the same skills as designing a creative direct action. Both are attempting to convey a message, often a demand or a request, through largely visual rhetoric which, like spoken language, has been developed...

Days 12 & 13 Policy Updates: Muddles and Huddles

by Earth in Brackets team and friends Negotiations in Warsaw carried on essentially non-stop from Wednesday morning until Saturday night, with many delegates not sleeping for at least the final 48 hours. There were three concurrent issues being negotiated over the course of Friday and Saturday: finance, loss and damage, and the ADP draft text. Finance and loss and damage were in closed contact...

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...

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:...