The Rocket that Never Made Lift-off

I have a confession to make: I'm not going to Copenhagen.

I will not be one of the thousands of young people from around the world working diligently with or against their governments to try to ensure a legally and politically binding treaty this December in Denmark.

I will not be amongst my beloved Canadian climate friends who have been working 200% harder than ever before to gear up for this significant conference.

I will not be meeting with Environment Minister Jim Prentice or lead climate negotiator Michael Martin to ask them why they cannot or will not do more to further progress on this life-and-death issue.

I will not be joining hands, sharing hugs and tears, or standing in solidarity with the international youth movement on climate change.

Instead, I will be hunkered down in a bed, trying to push thoughts of sadness, despair, failure, and disappointment out of my head.

What happened?

I burnt out. I tried too hard. I carried the weight of the world on my shoulders. I took on everyone's stress and worries as my own. I buckled under the weight that I foolishly took on.

I have been feeling this way for almost two months now, and during this time I have not been quiet. I have spoken about The Crash to friends and family, as well as to my peers and those within the movement that I have looked up to the most. To my surprise, I am not alone in this experience. It turns out almost everyone I have spoken to has experienced a similar burnout in their desperate quest to slow the quickening rate of climate change. Those who haven't yet feel as though they are on the brink of burnout.

Why are so many young people burning out at such an age?

It frightens me to think of how long this will go on. So many hard-working and dedicated young people are becoming depressed and suffering nervous breakdowns from struggling in the futile efforts to undo our government's damage to the climate.

Our future, our livelihoods and our quality of life is directly at stake, and so it is no small wonder that we feel we must carry the burden of the world's suffering on our shoulders.

Clearly our current leaders do not value the future as much as we do, and so it is not in their interests to protect and conserve it for us. Thus, if anything is to be done about it, it is up to us, the younger generation, the young adults, youth, and children of today.

What kind of torch is this to bear? If we don't fight the fight, who will? If we all crash and burn, what then?

I feel as though I have become a disappointment to my peers and the future. But at the same time, I recognize that if I am able to contribute to important work in the future, I must take care of myself in the present. Copenhagen is not going to be the Be All and End ALL of international climate negotiations, and there is infinite important work that must be done at home, on the ground, in the communities and daily lives of our citizens. It is here that I may shift my future focus, where I may apply my passion, zeal, and energy, once it returns. Perhaps it is here I can make the biggest difference, where my voice can be heard more clearly. Perhaps then this plight might feel less futile.

Shared Post from Rosa Kouri, Canada's Adopt-A-Negotiator Tracker

Death by text

Posted on 05. Nov, 2009 by Rosa Kouri in Canada, Uncategorized

The unbearable weight of consensus, and the inexorable heavyness of paper.

The unbearable weight of consensus, the law of infinite discussion, and other joys of collective editing.

Walking into an open negotiating session this afternoon, I was handed a document with the concise title “Text on potential consequences for further consideration by the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex 1 Parties under the Kyoto Protocol at its resumed ninth session”.

Huh? Do you think they could add a few more clauses to that sentence? Isn’t there some rule that titles should be, well, readable? Just say it outloud, it’s exhausting. You need to take periodic pauses to avoid asphyxiation.

I must admit, I feel really bad for these delegates. I sympathize. This stuff is not easy. And this is what Michael Martin and his team deals with every day.

I find the process astounding, especially at such an early stage as the discussion I was watching. They put a draft up on a large screen. Some poor guy gets to sit at the front of the plenary, and type changes directly into the document in real time. Everyone watches. Together, they collectively edit clause by clause, putting all additions in brackets. When it comes to the final document, each amendment ultimately requires consensus to pass.

Can I repeat the key element of what I just said – COLLECTIVE EDITING. Have you ever had to edit a document with your co-workers or as fellow students? You know how unmanageable it gets when you have more than two people editing or writing at once? You know that point when you are ready to poke your eyes out, wondering why our ancestors picked verbal communication as our preferred method of making sense to each other. Much less written communication! Who thought of that? Every word is an opportunity for disagreement, then toss in their combinations and permutations. Following the basic laws of mathematics, debate grows exponentially. Call it the law of infinite discussion. Couldn’t we just pile up coloured blocks instead?

At the session this afternoon, there were 15 clauses, and approximately 80 different government delegations present. Now, granted, some participate more than others, but still, imagine all the possible interventions. It’s a wonder anything gets done at all (and I mean that with all sincerity).

From what I picked up, Canadian negotiators (not Mr. Martin, who was probably in a closed session) interjected once asking for time to read a proposed draft. I find that reassuring – you can’t argue with someone who wants to read what they are supposed to be discussing.

Exhibit A:

To make sense of everything, and avoid unexpected legal implications from the documents they are writing, exhausted negotiators have no choice but to pay excruciating attention to detail. The result seems unbelievably banal.

For proof of this banality (not that you asked), I’ve paraphrased an exchange between the Secretary of the session and negotiators. Don’t blame me if you fall asleep by the time you finish this blog. Just admire me for staying awake long enough to write it.

Chair: Can we move forward with option one in Clause X, as it shows on the screen?

Delegate 1: Thank you chair, we’d like to recommend that the text from option one be added to the text from option two.

(poor guy working at the computer moves the text from one paragraph to another)

Delegate 2 interjects: You’re not allowed to delete anything, you can track changes, but not delete.

(poor guy undoes what he just did)

Chair: I believe that text was recently added during this session. Because the change was suggested by the person who proposed the text in the first place, it is not a problem.

(poor guy redoes what he just did)

Chair: Can we then accept option 1 and move on?

Delegate 2: I can not see the changes, could you clarify what you have just done?

Chair: I don’t know what we’ve just done. Could the first delegate please clarify?

Delegate 1: I did not intend introduce text into option one, but to introduce text to option two. In fact, the paragraph in option one is the paragraph in option two.

Chair: Is that satisfactory?

Delegate 2: I prefer the paragraph in option one as amended by the previous delegate, can we request that option one is kept as originally amended by the previous delegate before that amendment was removed by the previous delegate?

Chair: Fine, both paragraphs will be kept as amended by both delegates.

(poor guy re-undoes what he just did)

And imagine, this is how we’ve created practically every global institution. Amazing.

Much love from Barcelona,

Rosa

Back to the Blog

Yes We Can
Originally uploaded by Peter Blanchard

As the Countdown to Copenhagen quickly ticks on, perhaps now is a good time for an update on some of the exciting developments that have occurred in the global fight for a strong new agreement.

In October, global representatives met in Bangkok, Thailand to continue UNFCCC negotiations on the text for a Copenhagen Agreement. This text is intended to be legally and politically binding (but not one without the other), in an attempt to have a regulatory structure in place for when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. Time is tck tck tck-ing away, and negotiators still seem to be nitpicking over minute details, and posturing to try to claim as much power as possible. The underlying motivations are the usual: power and money. The developed world shows little consideration toward developing nations whose entire livelihoods (not just economies or power position in the world) are at stake.

Unfortunately, both the Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon and the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Yvo De Boer have lowered their expectations for the Copenhagen Conference, and would be happy to see even politically-binding text. This is a huge step down from what we need, which is LEGALLY binding in order to ensure that all nations play their respective role responsibly in the fight against climate change.

On the bright side, the civil movement is growing in phenomenal leaps and bounds.

Following the Bangkok conference was the largest global protest in human history on October 24th. Hundreds of thousands mobilized for 350.org, uniting everyone in asking global leaders to help identify a target of 350 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere in order to limit temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius. You can check out the images from literally all around the world here.

In Canada, over 1000 young and old citizens gathered on Parliament Hill for "Fill the Hill", many of whom were also participants in Powershift Canada 2009 conference. The conference enlightened youth on how to take meaningful action in their daily lives, how to coordinate campaigns and outreach initiatives, how to engage in the "Green Job" movement, and much more. Participants left feeling motivated, empowered, and optimistic about our chance of changing the nation's path toward a more climate-neutral future.

Now, we have the last UN negotiations before Copenhagen underway in Barcelona this week. As it stands, there is great pressure to move things along in order to at least achieve this political unity on the objectives and targets needed for a more stable future climate. Developing countries are becoming more and more vocal in their desperate attempts to achieve a just and equitable outcome in the negotations. Today, African countries walked out on an informal negotiating session, citing they would only rejoin once the developed countries could agree to some more ambitious emission reduction targets.

Groups around the world are standing up, walking out, and speaking out about the need to take stronger action on climate change. I just hope it is not too late, and that we will see significant progress between now and the end of the Copenhagen Conference in December.

Slow Down and Save the Planet

Upon the gentle persuasion of my concerned roommate, I have begun reading "In Praise of Slowness" by Carl Honore.  I think my housemate was concerned at the hectic and fast-paced rate of my lifestyle of late.  It is true that I often rush through my days trying to do as much as possible, and end up with little time or energy to even cook a decent dinner at the end of the day. 

But in addition to helping me realize I do need to slow down and perhaps slightly simplify my life, I've also made another realization: perhaps slowing down could save our planet?

We all tend to live lives that are driven by our wrist watches.  We divide our time into 15-minute or 1 hour blocks of time dedicated to tasks, meetings, reports - I sometimes even have to schedule time to just think about things.  We schedule the precious little time we have on weekends to cram in as much excitement and relaxation as possible in order to recharge enough for the next week.  Time is always going too fast, and there never seems to be enough of it to get everything done. 

As the population grows, there is a growing complexity in our lives.  Our social interactions are more complex, our politics are more convoluted, our jobs are more diversified, our economies are more textured by the multitudes of different demands placed on it... All of this drives a frantic pace of keeping up or catching up.  

We factory farm to produce enough food for us all at a cheap enough cost that everyone can afford it.  We mass-produce music, clothes, furniture, and more in factories that maximize time and financial "efficiency" (aka by making things cheaply and poorly).  We eat bad food at fast-food restaurants so that we can rush back to work for more meetings, or more shifts, or more report-writing.  And what do we have to show for all this rushing around? 

Crappy merchandise that breaks easily and creates more waste than we know what to do with.

Food that has lost a significant portion of its taste and nutritional value.

An economy that is stretched and strained, and precariously perched on the hopes that no one makes too big of a mistake in their mad dash to get things done (and clearly, someone(s) made a big mistake that turned our economy sour more recently).

But how does this contribute to climate change? 

Factory farming is among the most environmentally destructive activities us humans are currently undertaking. It requires massive amounts of petroleum-based fertilizers, toxic chemical pesticides that spoil our fresh water, hormones that have effects on the whole foodchain (both ours, and the foodchains affected by the traces that end up in our waterways), and a monoculture of crops and beasts that are susceptible to viruses and disease.

Of course, to get from meeting to meeting, and from home to work in time, we have to drive everywhere, so we guzzle gas and spew out CO2 like nobody's business.  We fly around from city-to-city because now even driving and trains isn't fast enough to satisfy the economically-driven need to show up for meetings in Ottawa at 9 am, and be back in Toronto for lunch at noon.

We push the demand for oil byproducts miles-high in order to have cheap, affordable products made from long-lasting (?) plastics that never break down when we are done with them.  (Which results in giant heaps of garbage that we have no more room for and which cause methane gas to form and escape into the atmosphere).  

The pace of our life is ridiculously dizzying, and is, I think to a large part, driving our massive consumption of greenhouse gas-producing materials.  

If we could slow down, I wonder how much of a reduction in GHG emissions we could realize? 

Imagine if we all ate local, organic food (think 100 or 200-mile diets)?  Imagine if we were all able to work in the cities we lived in, and could walk or take public transit to work?  Imagine a world where people actually USED the video-conferencing freeware that already exists today (think skype, jabber, Messenger), and no longer needed those short-haul flights so frequently (which also happen to have the biggest per-capita impact on GHG emissions)!  Imagine reverting back to hand-crafted furniture and other products that were built to last, and not trash within a few years.

Taking more time to accomplish our tasks means they will be well-thought-through and less prone to mistakes. Families will have more time together and society will benefit greatly from this (without research to back it up, I believe stress is probably the greatest driver of dysfunction and abuse in families).  There will be more time for leisure, sport, rest and relaxation. Governments will spend less on health care, and perhaps could invest more in public infrastructure that makes our cities more beautiful and functional to live in at a local level.  

And then, on the occassion that you do want to take a long-distance vacation, we won't have to feel so guilty about our carbon footprint, because a mass population living a slower, local, organic lifestyle surely counteracts a vacation abroad each year.  

Just a thought.  I am really liking this Slow Movement idea more and more.

Bonn Bonanza

Sorry for the 4 month hiatus, to any readers out there.  Time to get back on this track.

I've been following the UN climate negotiations happening in Bonn, Germany this week and next.  I was very pleased to see among the emails and updates that Australia has finally signed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.  What does this have to do with climate change, you ask?

Well, there have been ongoing heated discussions related to the impact of reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries (REDD) on indigenous peoples.  At the UN Climate change conference in Poznan last December, Canada and a few other nations openly opposed language that protected the rights of indigenous peoples to the use of forests for survival (e.g. firewood, construction material, clearing for agriculture).  This created extreme tension between developed countries, and indigenous peoples and developing countries.  By including language in REDD policies that removed their rights to using forest products, these proposed policies could compromise their ability to survive.  

While it is incredibly important to find any opportunity to reduce emissions from deforestation in developing countries, these opportunities must never compromise anyone's right to survival.  Climate change mitigation is NOT about oppression and removal of basic human rights to survival.  It is the opposite - it is about ensuring actions are taken today to ensure the survival of ALL peoples, in all future generations.  Such damaging language would be a step backward for the human rights movement.    

Australia's signing of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is a signal to the last three remaining hold-outs in the world who have not yet signed this important non-binding declaration.  

Who are those other three hold-outs? Canada is one of them, backed by New Zealand and the United States of America.  

I hope Canada and the other three remaining nations will take Australia's lead, and also sign the Declaration.  This would mean that these countries could no longer block language in REDD Policies that maintain indigenous peoples' rights to the forests for survival in the new climate change agreement in Copenhagen.

Moving Forward

The holidays are over, the reflection period has subsided, and its time to get back to work. In this time, there has already been some talk of strategizing how the CYD will push forward in the coming months to build momentum for the next UN climate conference in Copenhagen.

And the momentum is building as we speak.

A CYD member from PEI has met with the PEI Ministry of Environment to discuss their climate change policies and youth involvement in the process. He hopes to use this meeting as a launching pad for further ongoing discussions between youth and the Ministry, with input being fed up the ladder, so to speak, to the Federal government.

In Ontario, youth are planning for a meeting with Liberal Leader Ignatieff in hopes of establishing a positive dialogue between youth and the Liberal Party on the climate change issue. Because Ignatieff hasn’t fully endorsed the Coalition proposal, youth will use the meeting as an opportunity to share our support and encouragement for the Coalition, while also opening the discussion to the Liberal Party’s climate change platform and how we feel it could be strengthened.

In the Yukon, a Canadian Minister’s Meeting is scheduled for February, and youth up there are organizing how to make the most of this opportunity to address our concerns to a large group of ministers from various departments.

In Alberta, pressure is continually being applied to dispel myths and reveal dirty secrets about the tar sands. Our Alberta youth reps have done a fantastic job of highlighting the issues in the mainstream media, and I have no doubt that future meetings with key politicians out there will be fruitful and effective.

At a more local level, I’m beginning the first of what I hope will be a series of talks about the climate change conferences and what we need to do next, beginning this Saturday with a panel discussion on transportation and climate change. I will then deliver a recap of the Poznan climate conference and the role of Copenhagen in a stable climate future for municipal staff. Following that, I am arranging presentations with various organizations and groups in the community and abroad, hoping I can spread the message of urgency and the need to act now to as many people as possible.

Let the work begin. Nose to the grindstone, here we go!

International Youth Climate Movement

International Youth Climate Movement COP 14 from CYD to Poznan on Vimeo.