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Blog Action Day 2010 - Video

Water is life. Realize the importance of creating one unified voice for the sake of every-one. Have a peak at this video:



Blog Action Day 2010: Water from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

Blog Action Day 2010

Hello again! 

Wow, it's been a while since we've posted anything lately. Rest assured, though, that Climate never stops, sleeps, nor forgets. And so.. we're back.

Take some time to mark your calendars for the Blog Action Day 2010. Last year, the topic was on the Climate Change Convention in Copenhagen, Denmark. This year, the prevailing concern among many is water. I'm sure we all have something to say on this matter. Express, explain, come up with solutions, and most importantly come together because this affects all of us.  

Interested? Now don't forget to register and keep yourselves posted on updates at: http://blogactionday.change.org/register. 

Chat with you soon!

Global Day of Action: Green Strokes Mural Event

Last 12th of December, the Global Campaign for Climate Action had joined forces to create a strong voice, a call to world leaders in Copenhagen, Denmark. While they decided the fate of the world, nations sought to be heard loud and clear: Time is running out for climate action! ticktockticktock With this, WWF had organized Green Strokes: Motions for the Planet, a mural-making event in Riverbanks, Marikina.

It was high time that Filipinos illustrate their visions for a sustainable and green future.



Artists begin sketching on the wall.




It was a very hot day!



We want CLEAN AIR.



We want CLEAN ENERGY.



The time is NOW.



WWF works for a clean future.



It's time we harness CLEAN ENERGY.

The temperatures of that day seemed unbearable, but it would be nothing compared to what would happen should we remain immobile against a changing climate. Perhaps, it's better to make the choice ourselves and to NOT lie dormant awaiting world leaders who remain indecisive. They are a handful of people as compared to the whole world that must find a way to survive. Time is running out. The time for climate action is now. Join us and do your share.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 15th Conference of Parties

Dear all,

We’re on air: the Copenhagen Climate Summit started this morning - with 41 minutes delay. It was at 10:41 local time on Monday morning when a group of high-level speakers took their seats on the panel of the opening plenary in the Bella Center. Yvo de Boer, the Executive Secretary of the UN climate secretariat, came with a bright smile. Lars Lokke Rasmussen, the Prime Minister of host country Denmark, looked confident. And Connie Hedegaard, Danish Minister and President of COP15, shook many hands on her way up to the panel. It was obvious that they aimed at an optimistic start, to boost hope for a positive outcome of these negotiations.

Before any speeches were given, however, a short film reminded the delegates that the world is watching and demanding a deal. In the film, a little girl is plagued by nightmares about being caught in a catastrophe, after watching news reports about devastating climate impacts on TV. At the end the girl wakes up and takes a camera to tape a statement to leaders about the frightening realities of our times and the dark visions of her dreams. She says into the camera: “Please help change the world!” This was quite dramatic, and saw the plenary burst into applause. Trumpets and harps tuned into the charged atmosphere, and a Danish girls’ choir started singing hymns.

For those who hadn’t yet understood that Copenhagen is about our future, the subsequent speeches emphasized it once more. Prime Minister Rasmussen spoke a lot about ambition, but it didn’t quite feel like he was burning for the idea. His Minister, Connie Hedegaard, chose a different tone. “Let’s get it done!” was the recurring theme of her speech, a speech that was strong and full of fighting spirit. Hedegaard made a good point when highlighting that the momentum for an agreement has never been bigger and might never again be as big as it’s now – an important reminder for the world to grab this precious opportunity and indeed finally “get it done”.

Yvo de Boer went into the details of what he thought should be agreed in Copenhagen, but his multi-layered Christmas cake metaphors didn’t really answer all the important questions. The politicians left it to Rajendra Pachauri – Indian Nobel laureate and chair of the IPCC – to fill overused adjectives like “ambitious” with meaning, reminding the world of the real threats we are facing and what has to be done in terms of concrete targets and financial support to protect people and nature.

And Pachauri was clear that we are facing dangerous consequences, that emission reductions have to be much deeper than previously pledged, and that action now is far cheaper than paying the bill later when disaster strikes.

So for the record: everyone thinks we need a deal, everyone seems to want a deal, and everyone says we can get a deal. What this deal will look like and how we get it, however, is the big open question that Copenhagen still has to answer. And while a positive start with optimistic speeches and fighting spirit is important, we have to turn the welcome momentum into real change now, the change the little girl in the film has been asking for, the change that will transform this planet and lead us into a low carbon future. The haggling between parties that started right after the festive opening speeches – during a discussion about the agenda for the next weeks – indicated that the way towards success will be a very rocky road.

However, the two negotiating tracks, the Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG LCA) and the Ad-Hoc Working Group for the Kyoto Protocol (AWG KP), did their job and went through their procedural discussions swiftly and without too much upheaval. That means they are all set to get to work now, to turn around text, to draft our future, to get rid of the square brackets, to replace loopholes with ambition. None of that happened today, negotiators just did what they had to do, but at least no precious time was wasted. And the idea to end Copenhagen with a loose and unreliable political deal seems to be getting less popular by the day. All developing country groupings referred to the need for a legally binding deal in their statements.

There was some other good news, with the US Environmental Protection Agency announcing today that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare, which ultimately sets the stage for regulation of global warming pollution under the country’s Clean Air Act. This underscores the US administration's seriousness about climate change, but the US will also still need legislation to come out of the Senate, for the international community to trust that the US will follow through on the medium and long term emission reduction targets announced by President Obama last week.

France also talked about targets today, when Climate Minister Borloo, one of the few EU ministers attending the COP15 opening day, announced a French plan to push the EU to increase the block’s emission reduction target for 2020 from 20% to 30%. The Swedish EU Presidency announced the same ambition, but Borloo said one thing more: He said that France would meet its national emission reduction targets purely through domestic action, rather than buying cheap offset credits from abroad. No other European country has been so clear in its ambition for what it does inside its own territory, and that ambition is very welcome.

Borloo also talked about increased financial support for Africa and other developing countries, and that this money should come mainly from public rather than only from private sources – a good move that puts pressure on the EU Council meeting of Heads of States at the end of the week. Will Europe raise the bar and finally return to old leadership strength?

On a final note: The rooms at the Bella Center are named after famous Danes like Hans Christian Andersen or Karen Blixen. The big plenary hall is named after Tycho Brahe, an astronomer, the Danish equivalent of Galileo. Legend has it that he died at a fine dinner in Prague, where he urgently needed to go to the toilet, but felt he couldn’t really leave the table. According to the legend, his bladder burst, and that killed him. We really hope that the Danes haven’t chosen this name for the plenary because they foresee a COP that runs over time, with terrible consequences for the participants. Maybe they just wanted to suggest that we should all reach for what Tycho Brahe observed: the stars.

Actually, nothing else will be good enough.

Keep up the good spirit – and if you want to see more of what we’re doing at COP15, visit WWFs Inside COP15 video blog at http://cop15.panda.org/

Kim & Christian

WWF: Will President Obama Lead Our Country at the UN Climate Conference?

Hello Green Team,

Check out this video and send it out to whoever you know.

The US plays an important part in ensuring that a successful and binding deal comes out of Copenhagen. We need to realize that we can only protect our future by acting as one and thinking of all.

click this link.

Yours truly,
WWF-Philippines

Obama and Hu aim to agree greenhouse gas targets

Statement by leaders of world's two biggest polluters could breathe new life into Copenhagen climate change talks.

Link

The US and China, the world's two biggest polluters, today said they aimed to set targets for easing greenhouse gas emissions next month, potentially breathing new life into the flagging Copenhagen climate negotiations.

Days after the US president, Barack Obama, said time to secure a legally binding agreement had run out, he and the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, agreed at a summit that they would continue to press for a comprehensive deal at Copenhagen that would "rally the world".

"Our aim there, in support of what the prime minister [Lars Løkke] Rasmussen of Denmark is trying to achieve, is not a partial accord or a political declaration, but rather an accord that covers all of the issues in the negotiations and one that has immediate operational effect," Obama said after holding talks with Hu in Beijing.

In a joint communique, the leaders said an accord in Denmark should include emission reduction targets for rich nations and a declaration of action plans to ease greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries.

Countering concerns that a non-legal deal could evade many key issues, the communique said the climate talks should also increase financial assistance to developing countries, promote technology development, help poor communities to adapt and enhance forest protection.

The two governments also signed agreements to co-operate in the field of low-carbon technology, including the establishment of a joint research centre and the promotion of "cleaner coal" power plants, green buildings and electric cars.

Hu said China and the US had agreed to expand co-operation on climate change, energy and the environment and to "help produce positive outcomes out of the Copenhagen conference".

After weeks in which national leaders have been downplaying expectations for Copenhagen, environmental groups said today's words from the US and China – which between them account for 40% of the world's emissions – had gone some way towards restoring ambitions for the summit.

They called for specific targets to be met, but said more political will was needed to ensure a successful outcome.

During wide-ranging talks with Hu, Obama raised differences over Tibet, human rights, trade and Iran.

While Hu made a pointed reference to trade disputes, the overall focus of the two leaders was on collaboration as they lauded increased co-operation between the countries on issues such as the economy and non-proliferation.

Today's event had been described as a press conference, but no questions were allowed.

Instead, Hu and Obama delivered brief prepared comments on their discussions, which had lasted for two and a half hours.

Obama said the relationship between the US and China went "far beyond any single issue", while Hu described the meeting as "candid, constructive and very fruitful".

However, he added: "I stressed to President Obama that, under current circumstances, our two countries need to oppose and reject protectionism in all its manifestations in an even stronger stand."

Obama said China's partnership with the US had been critical to attempts to end the recession, but again stressed the importance of balanced economic growth and pointedly praised his hosts' commitment "to move towards a more market-oriented exchange rate over time".

China is angry about US steel pipe and tyre tariffs, and is also concerned that the US deficit could threaten its vast dollar holdings as the largest foreign lender to the country.

The US wants China to allow further appreciation of the renminbi in order to shift the huge trade imbalance.

Hu called on the US to respect China's "core interests" – a reference to Taiwan and Tibet.

Obama said the US accepted that Tibet was part of China, but went on to call for the early resumption of talks between Beijing and the Dalai Lama.

He also said the governments would resume their on-off human rights dialogue early next year.

Obama told reporters he had spoken to his counterpart "about Americans' bedrock belief that all men and women possess certain fundamental human rights" and stressed that these applied to "religious and ethnic minorities".

The US president thanked Hu for Chinese support for non-proliferation and the elimination of North Korea's nuclear programme, and the countries are focusing on restarting the collapsed six-party talks.

However, their differences on Iran were obvious, with Obama saying Tehran "has an opportunity to present and demonstrate its peaceful intentions, but if it fails to take this opportunity, there will be consequences".

Hu said only that the issue should be resolved through negotiations. Iran is a long-standing ally of China.

The Chinese leader will hold a state banquet in Obama's honour tonight.