Written by Maruška Mileta, one of the coordinators of the Young Friends of the Earth Europe team going to the UN climate talks.
This year’s UN climate negotiations will be taking place in Warsaw, Poland. It starts next Monday, 11th November and last until Friday 22nd November. We are going to be there the full two weeks and want to tell you our plans!
A small group of volunteers have been working hard over the last months to prepare Young Friends of the Earth Europe’s presence in Warsaw, and preparing for our team of activists from all over Europe to be there. There will be 15 of us in the first week, and 25 in the second week, coming from Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Austria, Norway, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden, UK and Ireland!
Working closely with Friends of the Earth International, Push Europe, Earth in Brackets and other youth groups, we’ll be there to learn about climate justice and raise pressure on the governments and corporations blocking real climate action. We’ll be organising lots of actions and doing a lot of social media reporting for you all back at home. Six from our team are already in Warsaw to take part in the four-day Conference of Youth /COY9: Power Shift Central and Eastern Europe, an event bringing together 400 youth from all over the globe. The participants will stage an action on November 9th in the streets of Warsaw, promoting the benefits of community renewable energy.
Reclaim Power: Community energy, not dirty energy!
We see every year that the climate negotiations are being increasingly hijacked by dirty corporations, who are trying to keep fossil fuels and false solutions like carbon trading, carbon offsetting, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and nuclear energy on the table. The ‘love affair’ between the fossil fuels industry and governments needs to be exposed, especially with the International coal and climate summit happening in Warsaw during the negotiations (Nov 18-19) where some of the high level UNFCCC representatives will be speaking. We think it is unacceptable for the UNFCCC to be giving a platform to the corporations and sectors that undermine our chance for a safe future and climate justice.
Over the past month in the lead up to the COP 19 climate talks, we’ve been taking part in Reclaim Power: Global month of action on energy (Oct 11 – Nov 11). Our messages with the Reclaim Power month of action will continue throughout the two weeks in Warsaw, where we’ll be calling for a ban on dirty energy and support instead for clean, renewable, community owned energy.
Building the Climate Justice movement
We need a global agreement in 2015 (at the “COP21” in Paris), where, amongst other things, industrialised countries must commit to reducing their emissions domestically – without offsetting – in line with what science and equity demand, and by at least 40% by 2020. One of our main purposes of going to Warsaw is to continue building the climate justice movement, in particular bringing the youth and future generations perspectives into the narrative and demands. It is also very important that we work with other social movements because the climate has already changed, we are all affected and we need to fight further catastophic consequences together. Uniting the struggle, uniting our voices.
Follow us in Warsaw
In the next two weeks you can follow us at the climate negotiations through our different channels: this website, our facebook page and twitter. Also make sure to follow the Push Europe website, facebook and twitter.
