Youth`s almost intervention at the first day of SBSTA

Yesterday, Aneesa Khan was going to speak on behalf of the youth constituency at the opening of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA). The youth is given only two minutes to speak at the opening and closing of negotiations. This time, however, the chair did not even leave enough time for the intervention to be read. We are posting it here as we consider the messages...

ADP: the biggest fight at COP20 Lima

by Klever Descarpontriez & Maria Alejandra Escalante(and many friends) Climate change impacts show no patience with the slow pace of progress at the intergovernmental negotiations and the very limited amount of actions being taken to halt global warming. We are already facing the impacts: sea level rise has displaced island communities in Bangladesh, droughts have decreased yields by 50% in...

We Need to Talk About Adaptation

by khristian méndez // As the President of Guatemala walked out the room, the First National Congress on Climate Change came to an end. Behind the President, Otto Pérez Molina, came a parade of political figures: the Minister of the Environment and Natural Resources, the President of the Guatemalan Congress, a German Ambassador, and several other local and political authorities. Of course, they...

Divided before a Changing Climate

by khristian méndez // Bright eyed and still a little weary from a charged first day, the First National Congress on Climate Change carried on today in Guatemala City. As I wrote yesterday, there's quite a spectrum of political actors and stakeholders regarding climate change. Today, the voices began to show stronger colors, some in stark contrast of each other, characterizing the different...

Changing the System, Not the Climate: July Social PreCOP begins

by nathan thanki Greetings from Las Islas Margaritas, the site of the first ever social preCOP on climate change. Over the past few years on this website you may have read many dispatches, reports, polemics, and laments from the prefabricated halls of various UN climate change negotiations. We have watched and written as the process to negotiate a new global climate treaty (or whatever) was...