Sunday, November 30, 2008

UN Conference on Climate Change

Hey all!
You may or may not be aware, I am in Poznan Poland at the United Nation Conference on Climate Change (aka the UNFCCC COP 14) and I’m here representing the Sierra Club Canada. As the project Coordinator for SustainDal, I wanted to share some of my experiences with you. This is a 12 day conference and will be covering a huge number of topics and issues within those topics.

I’m staying with the Canadian Youth Delegation at a hostel (imagine 30 young environmentalists crammed into a handful of 8-bed per room dorm rooms- let me tell ya, it’s hectic!) And these are some of the brightest and most talented young activists in Canada, they are incredibly inspiring people. They are representing a huge range of local and national organizations who are running brilliant climate change campaigns for thee negotiations and I plan to send out some links to these sites to SustainDal members because we have power in numbers.
2 things are vital, and we need you help:

1: the emissions reduction target for the post Kyoto period (after 2012) will be decided in Poznan. The IPCC is calling for a 25-40% reduction beyond 1990 levels by 2020 and many countries feel that this number is too high. IT IS NOT TOO HIGH. The 25-40% range will result in a 2 to 2.4 degree change in the global climate. However the Climate Action Network (a group of global ENGO’s) are demanding a MINIMUM f 40% reductions to avoid a global environmental catastrophe because they feel that even a change of 2 degrees will be far too much. We need you to lobby the Canadian government to support this target range (25-40%) during the negotiations. That means today! Contact your MP and demand the most stringent reductions from Canada, one of the worst polluting countries in the world. Keep an eye out for Avaaz-type e-petitions as well.

2: The Canadian Government may fall on December 8th a coalition government may take its place. If this happens, it’s possible that Canada could reverse its Kyoto position DURING the conference. We could turn things around. Canada has always deliberately and shamefully blocked negotiations, and only the US is a worse offender than us. We need you to write to the Canadian government and tell them that you want to see a coalition government (and not one between the conservatives and NDP that we’ve head rumours about). The conservative government has had an abysmal track record concerning climate change and are oblivious to the absolute urgency of this issue, let’s get them out of power and take some real action on climate change for once! Write to your MP and tell them what YOU want from YOUR government!

I’ll be writing an update every few days. You can also check out my Sierra Club blog for more details on the daily developments here in Poznan at www.sierraclub.ca/climatecrisis

Also, please go to the International Day of Action on December 7th at Back Rock Beach in Point Pleasant park and show our federal government that they need to act now to meet our Kyoto commitments. For more info, keep an eye on the SustainDal emails, go to www.sierraclub.ca/atlantic or email atlanticanadachapter@sierraclub.ca.

Until next time!

Emily

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