real life email thread straight from Doha… where the weekend approaches. and we don't know how to react.
(photo cred: Cam Fenton)
Chair's text:
Salaams,
As Minister of Fun Times, I give you a brief update from home base.
Down-time: Suben informs me that there is a town built for the movie 'Transformers', an epic tale of love and machinery starring Shaia LeBeef, a bit outside of Doha that is deserted and a good place for camping/stargazing/legal desert camp fires. It's called film city. There are no cinemas there, though.
There is also apparently an awesome sounding beach with cheap dune-buggies and camel rides somewhere outside of Doha.
Also, there's a falconry shop near the place we got Kaba, Hot Doogs, and Borgers the other nice. I hereby declare this awesome.
Earth in Brackets is currently reporting from COP 18 of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Doha, Qatar. We are working with other youth and environmental organizations to promote justice, ambition, and equity. Follow our takes on developments at the negotiations here, and keep up to date on facebook and twitter!
The following statement was delivered during an [Earth in Brackets] press conference on Wednesday, November 28th.
The word equity is mentioned a lot within the UNFCCC, and today I would like to expand upon what equity actually looks like and what negotiationsmustdeliver for there to be an equitable outcome in Doha.
Equity is the only road to ambition, and the climate legacy that must be shaped if we have any hope in solving this global crisis.
Currently, what equity there is within these halls is being consistently eroded and undermined throughout these negotiations. The negotiations in Doha are not simply a battle about the future of the climate, this is a battle over the status quo, privilege, and hegemony throughout the world. This is a battle of economic and historical privilege that developed countries have abused for centuries, while taking up stolen atmospheric space.
At a recent press briefing between the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, the former president of Ireland, a senior Caribbean negotiator, and the youth, a series of questions were posed to the youth by the panelists. Some youth found these questions patronizing – Earth in Brackets included. The questions were:
What would you do differently?
What would you change if you could run the negotiations?
Why aren't you angrier?
Jane delivered the following statement in answer to the above questions, stressing that the youth are indeed angry because even as the UN asks them to be more revolutionary, it excludes those who are even slightly so. She highlighted the situation of Anjali, who remains blocked from the negotiations based on an arbitrary personal decision made by UN Security.
Anjali's continued ban from the COP is a serious issue of the UN Secretariat undermining the participation of civil society. It also must be noted that the UNFCCC accredited the other seven people who had been de-badged in Durban, allowed them to incur all the trip expenses, and then upon their arrival in Doha made their entrance conditional upon getting approval by UN security. This is an unacceptable process. We cannot help but wonder what the aim of the UNFCCC is with regards to civil society. Can the personal impression of Anjali by the UN head of security constitute a genuine reason to ban her for the entire week? Does the fact that the guard acknowledged that Anjali was "influential" and "has a say" among her peers have anything to do with it?
UNFCCC Secretariat: Why ask us to be angry in such a patronizing way when you have deliberately excluded angry voices from the process?
