Maria at the UN Climate Talks in Bonn

22.6.2011

Maria at the UN Climate Talks in Bonn

One of the main issues discussed in Bonn was the observer organisations participation in the negotiations. After this blog SBI (the Subsidiary Body of Implementation) decided on text that is not as bad as it seemed the day before, but not as good at it could have been either. See the discussion in the closing plenary of the SBI here (item 3e): http://unfccc2.meta-fusion.com/kongresse/110606_SB34/templ/play.php?id_kongresssession=3620&theme=unfccc

Regards,
Maria

5.6.2011

Maria on her way to Bonn climate negotiations

Introduction

So, I’m on my way to Bonn, to represent the British Council at the climate negotiations again. I guess I will be doing the same in Bonn as I did in Cancun, Mexico, ie. support YOUNGO (what’s that? See here: http://youthclimate.org/ ) in any way I can and keeping you guys updated about what’s going on (or what’s not) at the negotiations. I’m so looking forward to meeting all my friends from Cancun again! But of course it’s not going to be the same in many ways, Bonn is smaller, there’s less people there, and the negotiations will not move forward in the same way as in Cancun. But I hope that after Bonn, we would see clearly what to expect of Durban. I will be in Bonn only the second week. But luckily we all can follow the negotiations live on the UNFCCC homepage. So follow what’s going on here: http://unfccc.int/

You can read my blogposts from Cancun here: http://enterculture.org/?cat=5

Trains and planes

I don’t understand why anyone would travel by train anymore. Flying is fast, cheap, easy and convinient. Travelling by train is slow, expensive, complicated and uncomfortable. But I love travelling by train! You really feel that you are travelling, moving from one place to another. When flying somewhere, it takes a couple of days to realise that you’r not home anymore. In the train you have time to go through this mindsetting process. It’s great to see the landscape change outside the window, and follow how the sun creates different lightsettings during different times of the day. In the train you easily find someone to talk to, when in the plane you rarely start talking to the person sitting next to you. And all the backpackers reminds me of my interrail trip I did when I was 18!

When booking my night train from Copenhagen to Bonn, all the sleeping cabins had already been booked. I hope this is because the climate negotiators are walking the talk, and not flying to the negotiations.

Regards,
Maria Vuorelma

ps. Loving the windmills you see along the way and the solarpanels on the roofs of family houses!

Toward a universal sense of purpose

15.12.2010

Toward a universal sense of purpose

My friend and a climate advocate from the UK, Rory Moody, wrote this excellent blogpost about the results of COP16. I couldn´t have said it better myself, so I´ll just post it here aswell Enjoy!

If one was to carry out a cost-benefit analysis of COP 16 (and all those that preceded it) the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) would have been insolvent a long time ago. The deliverables simply wouldn’t measure up.

Yet what emerged from Cancun was, for better or worse, a small step in the right direction. The agreement asserts the need for “urgent action” to combat climate change. To this end, it reaffirms the commitment to raise and disburse $100 billion a year (through a Green Climate Fund) to support developing countries and includes measures to prevent deforestation.

There are, however, two notable caveats. A post Kyoto agreement to set legally binding emission targets was postponed until 2012 and the World Bank (read USA) – to many delegates dismay – secured the mandate to run the new Fund.

Looking beyond the details and the true value of COP 16 will be determined next year. If a post-Kyoto agreement is not reached in South Africa, the US and other global powers might call time on the UNFCCC. A more optimistic scenario would see Cancun as the first pathway to a green economy, maybe even the catalyst to a low carbon future.

The failures of Copenhagen were compounded by ‘climate gate’, an event which undermined the credibility of the IPCC and the wider scientific community. COP 16 has provided an anchor to the weather this storm, restoring trust in the UNFCCC mandate and recasting the debate in the right direction. Most important, it has shown that the value of the UN process extends beyond our political conventions and beyond conventional economic thinking.

Yet the practical implications cannot be ignored for climate change will not be cheap to address. Nor will it be tackled through unilateral action. It requires a global response specifically because its geopolitical consequences extend beyond national jurisdictions.

So if we are to respond we have to shelve our conventional ideas of citizenship and embrace a universal sense of purpose. For the heart of the matter is not within the footnotes of the text nor in the size of the financial envelope. It is in our worldviews where future generations will not judge us by the extent to which we use nature for own ends, but by our ability to preserve its integrity.

By Rory Moody
see all of Rorys blogposts here: http://challengeeurope.britishcouncil.org/index.php/blogs

And for an extra treat, on the same subject, check out this page, http://itsonehumanity.org/GVPP.html founded by another friend of mine, Elliot Verrault, that I met in Cancun.
Listen to a short interview with Elliot, at oneclimate.net: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi7hsEmWUOo&feature=player_embedded

UNfair

6.12.2010

UNfair

One can’t help but to become frustrated here at COP. The slow negotiations is an obvious source of frustration but there is also so much unfairness in the air. The host country, Mexico, is doing a good job at trying to reduce the unfairness of the stakeholoders participation, by having hearings with the stakeholders like businesses, environmental organizations, youth organizations and others that are present at the negotiations and by preparing a review paper of stakeholder participation. Hopefully that helps because right now it feels like our possibility to have an effect on the negotiations are slim to none.

Over the weekend the champions worked as volunteers at the World Climate Summit, the business summit on climate issues. A demonstration was held outside when the summit started against the business presence at COP. But I feel that they are as entitled to be here as the other stakeholders. But I don’t like the fact that just because they have bigger resources for lobbying, their voice is heard louder. That is very obvious in Finland, where for example youth are not included in the delegation nor heard before the negotiations and business lobbyist seem to be in charge of Finlands position in the climate negotiations.

Another thing I don’t like was how we volunteers where treated at the summit. I found out that racism still exists. We where told that we may have lunch at the summit. Everyone else did not have a problem with this, but when our darker champions from Indonesia and Bangladesh went to take food, they where told that they shouldn’t eat of the same lunch as the attendants who had payed $1.000 for the summit, or they would have to pay for it too. The issue got sorted out later, but left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Another thing that is unfair is that the Least Developed Countries (LDC) and especially the small island states (AOSIS) don’t have enough resources to send negotiators to the COP. Recently the host country announced that no more than 6 meetings are going to be held at the same time, but there are still delegations with less delegates than that. The UNfairplay initiative is doing what they can to help out. UNfairplay is a group of young people that help underrepresented delegations by for example attending sessions and taking notes for them. They just came out with a report of the unfairness of the negotiations and suggestions of how to improve the situation. You can read the whole report, Levelling the Playing Field – A report to the UNFCCC Secretariat by UNfairplay, here.

On this issue I also have to give a hand to Finland, who finances womens participation from the LDCs in the negotiations.

ps. The Article 6 went through, with all the amendements that YUONGO, the youth constituency, whished for! Lots of news on that in Spanish, but haven’t found a good one yet in english. I’ll keep you posted!

Youth and future generations day

2.12.2010

Youth and future generations day

Today (2. December) is the youth and future generations day at COP16 in Cancun, Mexico. This means that during the day there will be a lot of side-events and demonstrations to highlight the youth participation in the negotiations. The day started with a silent demonstration, to point out the fact that youth has very limited possibilities to affect the negotiations. But since some excellent, unexpected good news on Tuesday, this might change very soon.

The so called Article 6 of the climate convention, which deals with education, public awareness and public participation, will be discussed in a contact group, and a COP decision of it might be done here in Cancun. This means that the question will get much more attention than it has so far, and for example more financing will be possible. A great thing is that the draft that is proposed include a lot of the things the youth constituency, YOUNGO, has proposed to the text. Fingers crossed that it will go through! Follow the blog (and Twitter!) for updates on the issue!

Youth in Cancun

29.11.2010

Youth in Cancun

I arrived in Mexico late Saturday evening to participate in the climate negotiations. Not so long ago I did not think that this would happen. Last year, after participating in the negotiations in Copenhagen, I was really depressed about the result of the negotiations, like so many others. I had lost my belief in UNFCCCs power to act and the private sectors readiness and willingness to provide innovative solutions to the climate change.

But one could say that I lost my religion, but found my faith. I found new faith in the youth! In Copenhagen you could see them everywhere (I say them, because in Copenhagen I didn’t participate as a youth delegate, but solely represented my job at the Nordic Council of Ministers). The youth was very engaged and knowledgeable and a positive force in the middle of the nightmare that Copenhagen became. The global youth’s willingness to take responsibility and act is something totally different than you would think that the general atmosphere of the public is when you follow the negotiators, who are not ready to compromise when it comes to so called national interests. But the negotiators fail to see the big picture and realize that the global interest is in everyone’s national interest! Luckily the youth will be in Cancun to remind them of this fact, again!

Maria blogging/tweeting from Cancun COP16

These following posts where originally posted on British Council Finlands blog.

24.11.2010

Maria blogging/tweeting from Cancun COP16

Thousands of negotiators, NGOs, business representatives and heads of states from all around the world will meet in Cancun, Mexico, for the climate negotiations, COP16, starting next week. British Council will provide for 15 climate champions to participate in Cancun. I will be the only one from Europe. Now I need to know what message do you, as the youth of Europe, want me to take to Mexico?!

I will be blogging from Cancun, so follow this page!

My name is Maria Vuorelma and I’m one of the climate advocates of 2010-2011 from Finland. In summer 2010 I was elected to be one out of 17 climate advocates in Finland, under the British Councils Challenge Europe program. I hadn’t heard about British Council before but I had seen an excellent presentation at a seminar of the climate advocates of last year.  I’m 27 years old and work part time for the Nordic Council of Ministers. I’ve studied environmental economics at the University of Helsinki, with social psychology as my minor subject.

I’ve done my internship for the Ministry of the Environment of Finland. I am writing my master’s thesis on CDM, one of the flexible mechanisms about emissions trading under the Kyoto Protocol, for a private consulting company, specialized in emissions trading. Last summer I was involved in a start up that will bring clean technology to East-Africa, in order to empower the local community and fight climate change and deforestation.

My first presentation in primary school was about rainforests. I didn’t realize until upper secondary school that not everyone cares about the environment as much as I do! I love skiing and will do everything in my power to keep the winters of Finland snow covered!

More info about the youth climate movement:
http://youthclimate.org/

You can find more info about the Finnish projects and advocates here:
http://www.britishcouncil.fi/projects/climate.htm

Best wishes,
Maria