[Earth] member delivers SBSTA Closing Plenary Intervention at COP22

At every COP meeting, constituencies have the opportunity to address opening and closing plenaries through interventions. The closing of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice closed today at COP22, and a member of our COP22 delegation, Jenna Farineau, gave the speech on behalf of the UNFCCC youth constituency (special thanks and shoutout to all the people who worked on the...

A COP of Action?

By Laura Berry & Margherita Tommasini “As we open COP 22, 100 parties have ratified the Paris Agreement. All together, we have made possible what they said it was impossible and we have done it with determination, we never gave up, this is a historic moment” ~Ségolène Royal, President of COP21 The official Opening Ceremony and first plenary session of the COP 22 climate negotiations in...

The Paris Agreement

guest blog by Daniel Voskoboynik, This Changes Everything UK For all the dispiriting truths I know about the world, inside of me I still carry impulses of hopeful naiveté: that there are no bad intentions but misguided ones, that things are being constantly improved, that there are always saviours somewhere, that all problems find their cures. These intuitions, engraved in me through innocence...

A Message Home to the US: What Actually Happened at COP21

  by Morgan Heckerd Over the past two weeks 196 governments have spent hours within consultation rooms and plenary halls in efforts of reaching an agreement. They are here in Paris because they know that the era of emissions need to come to an end. The urgency of climate change is no longer a concept that they can deny. But– the developed countries have fallen short in adopting the...

A Long Term Goal in the Paris Agreement: A Failure Without Differentiation & Equity

By Paige Nygaard We are getting closer and closer to the end of COP21. Anticipation is growing to seeing what disaster will unfold within the text. Will it be slightly bad? Absolutely terrible? How much will the United States be able to shift the burden of climate change to other countries while also blaming them for any bad deal in Paris? As every draft text gets released, it favors the...