Today is the first day of the conference!!! In the next two weeks, sixty thousand people will converge on this city to try to influence the outcome of a treaty negotiated by the worlds’ governments that will decide the fate of the world.
Yesterday, at the second and final day of the Conference of Youth, the focus zoomed in on ‘getting down to business,’ and unifying our amazing and unprecedented global youth movement. Kumi Naidoo, a remarkable social justice activist, and the new president of Greenpeace whose presidency perfectly represents the necessary merging of two movements, was the keynote speaker for the conference.
He made the point that we cannot allow leaders to simply make commitments to reduce emissions by 2050, because that essentially means nothing to them. They will be dead, and will not be able to be held accountable for their promises, nor will they have to deal with the catastrophic effects of their broken commitments. We must accept nothing less than a legally binding treaty that reduces emissions by 40% (of 1990 levels) by the year 2020.
And, as 1,000 youth from over 100 countries made clear last night, we won’t accept anything less. Bring It On!
COY workshop
This picture is for Phil Glover
Kumi Naidoo - so awesome!
WWF life-sized Polar Bear sculpture made out of ice!
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