Tools for raising awareness about climate change

May 15th, 2010 • Climate Change, environmentalism, international development
Tags: Climate Change, education, outreach, public participation

A few weeks ago I helped to organize a workshop in the Dominican Republic to help governments in the region share best experiences in the fields of education, outreach and public participation in climate change. All of this is enshrined in Article 6 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). See the presentation/animation that I put together for the event:

Thoughts on the April 2010 Bonn meetings

April 14th, 2010 • Climate Change, environmentalism, global warming, politics

Image by hoder via Flickr

By the time I got around to writing about the Bonn April 2010 meetings, I found out that a lot of people have already written a lot about it, so I’m just going to list a few pieces that I thought are worth-reading:

Plant for the Planet: Learning from children

February 10th, 2010 • 1 comment Climate Change, environmentalism, global warming, young people, youth

Yesterday, I learned about an initiative called Plant for the Planet. It is spearheaded by an organization called the Global Marshall Plan out of Germany. Their motto is “stop talking, start planting,” and has gained significant media exposure.

The face of the campaign is a 12-year old boy named Felix Finkbeiner, who has been able to convince politicians, activists and celebrities to let him take pictures of them with his hand over their mouths, as if he was shutting them up – it’s pretty nice

The group plans to do a big “tree planting party” at the next round of climate change negotiations in Bonn this coming May. They expect to bring thousands of children, who like Felix plan to tell the negotiators to shut up and start planting. It’ll be a sight to see!

I promise to take pictures, so stay tuned!

How the Scott Brown victory in Massachusetts may affect a global climate deal

January 26th, 2010 • Climate Change, environmentalism, global warming, obama, politics
Tags: Climate Change, obama, Scott Brown

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I find it particularly amazing how a fairly unexpected win by Scott Brown in Massachusetts may derail any chance of securing a legally binding treaty on climate change. Even before his election, the potential of passing a cap-and-trade bill in the US Congress seemed as a very challenging undertaking. Now, without a filibuster-majority, there is not any chance to pass a comprehensive climate change bill this year. Instead, the US Congress will likely pass a bipartisan energy bill, focusing on issues of energy security and efficiency, but without the much needed cap in carbon emissions. This would pretty much relinquish the Obama administration’s ability to cut a real global deal with legally binding provisions, and may even throw away the possibility of implementing the Copenhagen Accords.

I hope that the Obama administration is able to pull some type of miracle and convince some Republicans to sign up to a comprehensive climate bill, otherwise the whole world will be condemned by parochial politics in Massachusetts.

Conclusions from COP 15

January 25th, 2010 • 1 comment Climate Change, environmentalism, global warming, international development, obama, politics

Image via Wikipedia

After returning to Bonn, I have had a chance to reflect on the outcome of COP 15. The lack of success had a significant toll on the emotional and physical health of many of my colleagues and friends attending the Summit, but I want to focus on constructive solutions to some of the many problems that came up from COP 15.

1) Logistics: Over 40 thousand people ended up showing up in Copenhagen for COP 15, while the Bella Center only was able to hold 15 thousand people. It is incredible that the UN and the Danish government could not predict that logistical nightmare that many participants had to endure on their way in to the negotiations. It is imperative that for upcoming conferences, the UN and the host country recognize that climate change has become a top-political issue and will bring thousands of activists, government officials and media representatives interested in influencing the process. For example, passes could be mailed in advance or distributed in multiple venues throughout the host city, accreditation could reflect the venue’s size (!) and increasing efforts for video conferencing the sessions could be put in place.

2) Consensus vs. majority-based decision-making: One thing that was demonstrated at COP 15 was that the consensus-based model for decision making within the UNFCCC process is dated. The Copenhagen Accord was by no means the perfect outcome, but it still provided a good first step for on-going negotiations. The role of certain countries in bringing their national ideological struggles to the Summit, while denying the international community of some progress in its attempt to deal with climate change was regrettable. I hope that Parties to the UNFCCC reconsider this process, otherwise climate change issues may end up being discussed in a smaller, less democratic setting. 

3) The role of the media: For the first time in its history, a COP meeting attracted a level of media attention reserved for high-level meetings for (controversial) organizations such as the World Trade Organization (WTO). On one hand this demonstrates the level of political relevance that climate change has been able to achieve, but it also contributes to the circus atmosphere felt in Copenhagen. A colleague told me that when you have over 5 thousand journalists all seeking for the juiciest story, it is only inevitable for tensions to rise as politicians try to look good for audiences back home. For example, the media pressure may have led President Obama to rush an agreement with a limited amount of countries. I was particularly surprised to see journalists holding negotiating text before government officials did!  

4) The role of the United Nations: As I mentioned before, there is a serious risk for the negotiation process on climate change issues to be taken out of the UNFCCC context. This is indeed a very dangerous prospect! Not just for the obvious personal reasons, but because the UN, with all of its imperfections, still remains the only inclusive global forum. I do think that the process needs to be reformed (see point 2), but government officials, especially those from small developing countries should discourage any attempts to move the negotiation setting to grouping such as the G7 or G20.

I’ll make sure to keep sharing my thoughts on the UNFCCC process on this blog! I remain hopeful that COP 16 in Mexico will help us get back on track to save humanity from irreversible climate change.

COP 15 – What to expect?

December 2nd, 2009 • Climate Change, environmentalism

Dear friends,
I travel to Copenhagen this Saturday to attend the COP 15 negotiations. Developing and developed countries are still far away in many key issues, so I expect a lot of last minute wrangling, especially during the last week. I hope to maintain this blog throughout the meetings and share some of my personal views related to the negotiation process. You can also follow me on twitter at twitter.com/davilalu
If any of you are attending the COP 15 negotiations, make sure to let me know!
Hope to see some of you soon!

Obama and the Apollo Project

April 17th, 2008 • 2 comments corporate social responsibility, environmentalism, obama, renewable energy

Hi everyone! It has been a while since I posted to the blog. I have been really busy and doing some traveling for work. Nevertheless, after watching last night’s debate I had a definite urge to start blogging again!
I don’t want to comment on the bickering between the candidates… For that go to Politico.com…
Instead, I wanted to write about the most interesting subject (in my opinion) that came out of the debate; a clear remark by Obama supporting  an Apollo Project-like presidential initiative to support renewable energies and a global economy based on green jobs. This would include a dramatic increase of funding for R&D in overcoming the technology gap when it comes to energy resources.
Interestingly enough, I went to a meeting earlier this week with the Breakthrough Institute discussing recent findings published in a Nature Magazine on how the IPCC understimated the technological advances needed to stabilize carbon-dioxide emissions.
The presenters at my meeting focused on the need to mobilize the US in a massive technology innovation effort, like the rebuilding of Europe after World War II, the Manhattan Project and the Apollo Project. Michael Shellenberger, famous with Ted Nordhaus for proclaiming the Death to Environmentalism, has been promoting this concept as well, especially as it fits the idea of reframing the discourse on environmentalism to a more inclusive and broader movement for all progressives. All of this is very much influenced by George Lakoff’s work on framing language focus on strenghts and not on policy/wonky confrontational prescriptions (a la “bread and butter” Democrats).
The other side of this Apollo Project-type effort involves an honest partnership with groups that have not been fully engaged in the renewable energy discussion in the past, such as unions, environmental justice groups, people of faith, etc. An interesting group that is trying to bridge this is Green for All which tries to “build an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty.”
The point with all of this is that at my recent meeting, I specifically asked if anyone was speaking to the presidential candidates about all of this stuff, and no one really knew… Based on Obama’s remarks last night, it seems that someone is! Let’s see how it works out!