Greenpeace

The brave activists who crashed the Danish Queen's dinner for Heads of State last week in Copenhagen are being held for three weeks, according to the last report I heard. They managed to gain entry to the dinner and held up two banners calling on the world leaders assembled at that posh dinner to lead at the UN climate summit.

We need to let the Danish government know that we're watching how they (over)react to this situation, so can you please fan this Facebook page? More importantly, you'll be showing our activists that you support them (there's also an email address availble to send a personal message, if you choose).


Juantxo and Nora, pictured above, plus two other activists, are still being held by the Danish government.

While our activists remain in jail, the real climate criminals — so-called world "leaders" who failed miserably to move the world forward in dealing with the climate crisis — all flew home in style in their comfy private airplanes. If you just go fan this Facebook page it is a quick and easy way to show your support and keep pressure on the Danish government. Thanks.

Two years of planning, two weeks of negotiating, and all we get is a worse-than-nothing deal slapped together in the last two hours.

The UN climate summit has just reached its anti-climactic close. The details of the deal reached here in Copenhagen are still being hammered out by ministers, but Heads of State are already on their way home, their photo opps and press conferences over. Even by their own admission, they have struck a deal that will not do what's necessary to stop global warming. I'm not sure that qualifies as even a half-measure. Also not really sure what else I care to say right now other than that.

But Greenpeace International executive director, Kumi Naidoo, has plenty to say:

Not fair, not ambitious and not legally binding. The job of world leaders is not done. Today they failed to avert catastrophic climate change.

The city of Copenhagen is a climate crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport in shame. World leaders had a once in a generation chance to change the world for good, to avert catastrophic climate change. In the end they produced a poor deal full of loopholes big enough to fly Air Force One through.

We have seen a year of crises, but today it is clear that the biggest one facing humanity is a leadership crisis.

During the year a number developing countries showed a willingness to accept their share of the burden to avert climate chaos. But in the end, the blame for failure mostly lies with the rich industrialized world, countries which have the largest historic responsibility for causing the problem. In particular, the US failed to take any real leadership and dragged the talks down.

Climate science says we have only a few years left to halt the rise in emissions before making the kind of rapid reductions that would give us the best chance of avoiding dangerous climate change. We cannot change that science, so instead we will have to change the politics — and we may well have to change the politicians.

This is not over, people everywhere demanded a real deal before the Summit began and they are still demanding it. We can still save hundreds of millions of people from the devastation of a warming world, but it has just become a whole lot harder.

Civil society, the bulk of which was locked out of the final days of this Climate Summit, now needs to redouble its efforts. Each and every one of us must hold our leaders to account. We must take the struggle to avert climate catastrophe into every level of politics, local, regional, national and international. We also need to take it into the board room and onto the high streets. We can either work for a fundamental change in our society or we can suffer the consequences of one.

President Obama gave a short speech at the UN climate summit today, and it was, well… it was a bummer.

At a time when the world needed bold leadership perhaps more than ever, we didn't get it from the very guy who was elected because he promised exactly that.

The talks aren't over, of course. Maybe he's behind closed doors at the negotiations right now working some magic. But his speech certainly didn't give me any hope that that's what he came to do.

Update: We're hearing reports (unconfirmed) that Obama and China's Premier Wen Jiabao are in closed-door meetings right now trying to hammer something out. Call the US climate envoy right now and let them know that you support Obama taking bold, decisive action and showing some leadership: 202-647-9873. Leave a message if no one answers. Go here for a suggested script.

Obama didn’t put anything new on the table in terms of US emissions targets, commitments to help the developing world deal with the effects of global warming, or other US actions to ensure these talks result in anything resembling a fair and ambitious deal.

The full video of his 10 minute address can be viewed here, text here.

Obama’s speech took place one day after a leaked document from the UN Secretariat showed that the commitments on the table at Copenhagen would leave us with a "gigaton gap" leading to at least 550 parts per million of CO2 equivalent in our atmosphere and an average world temperature rise of 3 degrees Celsius (about 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) or more.

There's a reason we talk about "350" and not "550."  The science is clear that levels of climate pollution at 550 or higher put us into a danger zone where feedback loops kick in (burning of Boreal forests, melting of tundra, etc.), making catastrophic climate change a reality and dooming millions of people in least-developed countries around the world to suffer the ever-worsening impacts of climate change even though they did little to nothing to create the problem.

Instead of change we can believe in, we’re getting climate change the whole world will be forced to live with. So, not to be flippant, but, like I said before: Bummer.

Our executive director, Phil Radford, had this to say:

The world was waiting for the spirit of yes we can, but all we got was my way or the highway.

President Obama can still save Copenhagen by doing what he called on other leaders to do and give some ground by increasing his commitment to cut global warming pollution. But as it is he crossed an ocean to tell the world he has nothing new to offer, then he said take it or leave it.

Read the rest of Phil's response here.

Tomorrow is the last day of the UN climate summit and, by all accounts, the negotiations have descended into complete chaos. The voice of civil society has been increasingly marginalized. There has been no leadership from the developed countries that created the climate crisis. The pleas for survival by developing countries have been ignored. So we've taken action to demand leadership in the final 24 hours in order to save these talks and establish a real deal in Copenhagen.


Just moments ago, Greenpeace’s very own Head of State arrived at the Queen’s gala dinner for real Heads of State, 120 of whom are now here for the climate talks. Our distinguished faux-world leader and her entourage entered the dinner and held up two banners reading “Politicians Talk, Leaders Act.” We're sitting here watching coverage of the action on Danish news as I type.

They were there to represent the millions of people around the world who want a fair, ambitious and legally binding treaty. World leaders risk condemning the world to climate chaos if they don’t take decisive action to steer the climate negotiations in the right direction on the final day of talks.

We also projected the message " Don't betray our children's future" onto the Parliament building where the dinner was held.


The climate negotiations are on the verge of massive failure, but Heads of State still have just under twenty-four hours to turn the situation around. The rich world must commit to deeper emissions cuts and funding for developing country to lower their own emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change that are already being experienced. Demand leadership from rich countries by joining the over 13 million people who have already signed this petition calling for a real deal here in Copenhagen.

As a bonus, here's a video the activists shot in their car on the way to the dinner (apparently, their car was just ahead of Hilary Clinton's in the motorcade). This was livestreamed from a camera-phone they had with them, but it's also kinda arty in a way.

In what’s being hailed by some as “a truly remarkable tour de farce,” the US has earned first place in the Fossil of the Day award for the third day straight.

This time, the award was bestowed upon the esteemed delegation from the US for inserting “X %” as an alternative to the science-based targets currently in the draft text of a climate deal. This “X” is meant to represent voluntary pledges by countries, replacing concrete binding emissions reductions targets.


We’re at a critical point here, and nothing less than concrete, science-based targets will achieve the emissions reductions we need to avert catastrophic global warming. But the US is trying to move us in the direction of letting countries do whatever the hell they feel like, not what’s necessary.

Triggering unpleasant flashbacks of the Bush era, the US is also promoting a plan to abandon science-based targets altogether and instead wants a ‘pledge and review’ system, where everyone puts a voluntary target on the table, those targets are added up, and that number is used as the overall target. So my money says the US can keep the streak alive — but for the sake of us all, let's hope I'm wrong.

When French president Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in Copenhagen, a Greenpeace welcoming committee was there to meet him with the message, “Politicians talk, leaders act.”

We deployed our banner, but it turns out Sarkozy might not have ever seen it. Why? Because, we’ve heard, he might have hid in the airport rather than drive by our big bad banner.



I’ve seen our executive director, Kumi Naidoo, speak several times the past couple weeks (the man is everywhere, it’s as impressive as it must be exhausting!), and he has a line he likes to use about our leaders all suffering from the same medical condition: They’re all hard of hearing, he says. At least, they are when it comes to calls for leadership and climate action.

But I guess in this case that’s not even true. Sarkozy isn’t hard of hearing at all, he’s just sticking his fingers in his ears and going “lalalalala” to avoid hearing us. Which means our message is still reaching him all the same.

All week long, the Fresh Air Center has been a really valuable place for me and Jamie to come work, especially now that we're not allowed into the conference center. Run by Tcktcktck.org, the FAC is a space for NGO and independent bloggers to work and coordinate messages.

I'm writing this as our executive director, Kumi Naidoo, addresses the crowd (he's also the chairman of Tcktcktck). He got a very warm welcome, and the speaker before him actually said he was glad not to have to follow Kumi on. But I dare say the crowd is really here to see the main event: a panel hosted by Kevin Grandia of Desmog Blog and featuring Naomi Klein, author of No Logo and The Shock Doctrine (check her out at NaomiKlein.com); Andy Revkin of the New York Times; George Monbiot, author and columnist for The Guardian; and Katherine Goldstein, green editor for the Huffington Post. The panel discussion is about how coverage of the climate talks in the media will effect the final two days of negotiations.

Before the panel took the stage, I asked Naomi Klein (of whom, I freely admit, I am a rabid fan) to tell us what, in her estimation, the impact of activism outside of the conference center can have on the negotiations going on inside. Here's her response:

As Jamie reported yesterday, nongovernmental organization (NGO) delegations inside the Bella Center may have been dramatically reduced, but that doesn’t mean they can exclude our voice. We’re running lean, mean operations both inside and outside the conference center.

In my post yesterday about REDD, I mentioned that the US and Colombia had received a “Fossil of the Day” award for moving talks backwards. So we put together a little rapid response direct communication outside of the Colombian embassy calling on President Uribe to “Save the forests, don’t kill the climate.”



We also did a direct communication aimed at the US delegation yesterday morning:


I’m sure you got enough of the technical details about REDD negotiations in my post yesterday, but I was just reading an update from a member of our political team and thought it was perfectly illustrative of the type of really detailed policy wonk work they’re doing. Allow me to simply quote:

The critical issue of national vs. subnational must be resolved by ministers and we are depending on the EU, Brazil, and others to maintain a strong position on this. Our ask on this is very simple. In Section 5 [of the draft REDD agreement text] (natl v subnatl) we want: "the 3 Ands." I.e. having subnatl only as supplemental to national, not as a substitute for it. This means leaving "and" in 5a, replacing "or" with "and" in 5b, and replacing "with" with "and" in 5c (and deleting the phrase "optional interim measure" ).

For more on the distinction between national vs. subnational REDD projects and why we’re pushing for the national approach, check out my post, “Code REDD.”

By demanding a deal to save the climate both inside and outside the conference center, we have multiple means of leveraging our voice into the conversations happening right now about the future of our planet. So it’s like Jamie said, they can try to shut us out but they can’t shut us down.

Discussions at these climate talks are often in a highly specialized language that some of us like to call “Alphabet Soup” – because it is conducted almost entirely in acronyms. One such cup o’ soup we’ve been hearing a lot about lately is REDD, which stands for “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation.” So I thought I’d give you an as-brief-as-possible update on where the negotiations on REDD are at, and what we’re pushing for.

Stopping the deforestation and degradation of tropical forests is one of the quickest and most effective ways to reduce emissions quickly. And REDD can achieve a very substantial amount of emissions reductions.

As much sense as REDD makes, however, there are of course those countries who are undermining efforts aimed at writing a strong and effective REDD program into the climate deal being worked on here at the UN climate summit. And as is unfortunately true on far too many issues, the US is one of the major roadblocks. In fact, the US just won a “Fossil of the Day” award (which it shared with Colombia) for its obstructionist stance on the REDD issue (one of three Fossils it was awarded in the past two days, no less).


Over 50 Greenpeace activists from the Climate Defenders Camp on the Kampar Peninsula in Indonesia take action against deforestation — unfurling a 20 x 30 meter banner in a freshly destroyed area of rainforest that read ‘Obama you can stop this’, urging him to take strong leadership and work closely with other Heads of State to help avert a climate crisis by ending global deforestation, responsible for about a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. © Greenpeace / John Novis

The US and Colombia received this “slightly sarcastic yet highly prestigious” honor for moving REDD discussions in the wrong direction and delaying a draft text delivery to ministers, who will hammer out the final text to be presented to heads of state when they arrive later in the week. Both the US and Colombia are also supporters of what’s known as the sub-national or project approach to REDD.


We’re pushing hard for a national approach to REDD. The problem with managing REDD on a project-by-project or sub-national basis is that if you stop forest destruction in one place, it could just move to another part of the country. A national overview of all REDD projects and the emissions reductions achieved through them could prevent that from happening. The US is pushing for the project-by-project approach because it would benefit US corporate polluters who expect to receive cheap offset credits for investing in forestry projects abroad so they can continue to pollute at home.

On Monday the Rainforest Coalition led by Papua New Guinea opposed this approach and joined with the EU and Brazil in their demand for a national approach. We’re still waiting to see how this plays out and of course throwing as much support behind the national approach as we can (and lest you doubt that support will make a difference, check out who’s number four on this list of the most influential players here at the UN climate summit – ahead of President Obama, even!).

Another issue reaching a critical juncture in the REDD negotiations is the global goal for deforestation. We’re calling for zero deforestation by 2020, but as you might imagine there are attempts to water this target down by countries looking to avoid taking real action. The EU supports a goal of halving deforestation in developing countries by 2020 and stopping all deforestation in developing countries by 2030. Yet even this inadequate goal was recently undermined by an announcement from the UK, who proposed financing to halt only 25% of emissions by 2015.

Financing of forest protection is yet another issue coming to a head here. To achieve the full emissions reductions that are possible through REDD, the rich countries that are most responsible for causing the climate crisis must set up a global fund of USD 42 billion (30 billion euros) annually and make it immediately available to all countries with tropical forests. They must also make sure that the forest protection plans are set up in ways that protect wildlife and the rights of indigenous and local people.

These are just some of the key issues being worked on here as negotiators attempt to hammer out a plan for using REDD to tackle climate change. There are several more, but these are some of the main issues and this post has already gone on long enough, so I’ll stop there.

The Four Horsement of the Apocalypse rode through downtown Copenhagen today to remind world leaders of the consequences of inaction on climate change.

I know this sounds especially dour, whereas I think we all like to keep a positive attitude and believe that we can get through to world leaders and impress upon them the urgency of the moment we find ourselves living in, thereby inspiring them to act. That’s why our message isn’t that the arrival of the Four Horsemen is inevitable, but that we can change the future.

I put together this video of behind-the-scenes footage as well as footage of the Horsemen in Copenhagen’s Parliament Square so that you could have a full picture of this direct communication. Greenpeace’s Finnish climate campaigner, Sini, was kind enough to tell us what was going on.



Famine, Pestilence, War, and Death are especially good harbingers of the future we will face should we fail to keep global temperature rise below 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius), as these are all likely impacts of runaway climate change.

Climate change threatens to have a devastating effect on food supplies across the world, some of which are already in scarce supply. Some areas of the tropics would see massive crop failures from even a 1 to 2 degrees Celsius temperature rise (about 1.8 to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

This would of course bring on malnutrition for millions of people worldwise, while heat waves, floods, storms, and fires would intensify outbreaks of diseases such as dengue and malaria.

An estimated 300,000 people are already dying due to climate change every year, and those deaths are projected to increase to half a million people by 2030 if we don’t act now.

The death toll could rise even higher as resource scarcity and mass migrations bring the displaced and disempowered into violent conflict with other societies.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can change the future, if our politicians take bold and decisive action now.

Yesterday was the first time I've seen the sun since arriving in Copenhagen over a week ago. Literally. But that was not even close to the most exciting thing about the day.

The Greenpeace contingent of the December 12th "The World Wants a Real Deal" march was huge, lively, and — if you'll allow me to indulge in a bit of hyperbole — damn inspiring. I felt extremely fortunate to be there with so many passionate fellow activists. Despite the exhaustion from averaging 4 hours of sleep a night and the malnourishment from crappy convention center vegetarian food, their energy was so infectious that I was feeling great. And naturally I shot some video to share.

The march kicked off in Copenhagen's Parliament Square, where Kumi Naidoo spoke after the crowd had been warmed up by several other speakers, including "Mr. Green" and Vandana Shiva.


Once the march was underway, Greenpeacers stretched as far as the eye could see. We had three floats, several banners, a drum corps, and hundreds of shouting, dancing, marching activists. We'd made a few thousand yellow signs to hand out sporting various messages to world leaders, as you'll see. My favorite was "Bla bla bla - Save the climate."


I'd say the coolest part, though, was the "puppet master" float, which had a slick-looking, cigar-smoking business man controlling Obama, Merkel, and several other world leaders. I asked one of the activists pulling the float, Fidel, to explain it to us while he was pulling.


I shot short video blogs of a few other folks at the march, but I'll post those separately later.

A globe here in the Bella Center in Copenhagen left off several of the Pacific island nations through an "oversight." Unfortunately, the globe also provides a glimpse of how the South Pacific might look if we don't get a strong and legally binding deal here at the UN climate summit.

Yesterday, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) released a proposal for a two-protocol, legally binding outcome for the Copenhagen climate summit. In their press release, the group described the proposal as “designed to safeguard the Earth’s climate system and to secure the future survival of its 43 members.”

That’s well and aptly put, but far too modest. The members of AOSIS are some of the least-developed nations on Earth, including places like the Maldives, Tuvalu, and Papua New Guinea – nations that had virtually no role in creating the climate crisis but will suffer the most if global warming goes unchecked. It’s certainly true that safeguarding the Earth’s climate is key to these nations’ survival – but it’s equally true that it’s key to the survival of each and every nation on this planet.

The need for a legally binding agreement, as opposed to a politically binding agreement (which has lately been much touted by the US and other rich countries hoping to stall on making real commitments to take climate action), is evident enough, I think. But let me explain the “two-protocol” bit, because I realize that’s a bit technical.

What the AOSIS proposal would do is essentially two things: amend the Kyoto Protocol to extend it until 2017 (it currently is set to expire in 2012) and set new emissions targets for all parties; and simultaneously create a new “Copenhagen Protocol,” a legally binding agreement that would “enhance implementation of the [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)] in a balanced and comprehensive manner by addressing mitigation, adaptation, technology, financing and capacity-building support.”


6 August 2009 - Greenpeace activists scaled the 50-meter high coal loader at Hay Point Coal Terminal in Mackay, Australia and locked themselves on to the structure to stop its operation. The action took place during the Pacific Islands Forum in Cairns, to demand the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd stop risking the future of Pacific Islands by undermining real action on climate change and expanding Australia’s coal industry. © Greenpeace / Hamilton

Perhaps the most important element of the Copenhagen Protocol proposed by AOSIS, however, is that it would bring the US – the country that has contributed the most to climate change and continues to have the highest per-capita carbon emissions levels in the world – into the legally binding agreement.

In other words, the AOSIS proposal lays out the real deal that the world needs. Climate chaos does not respect national borders and does not discriminate between rich and poor nations. It will affect us all. Establishing a fair, ambitious, and legally binding treaty here in Copenhagen is a matter of survival for us all.

President Obama has officially arrived in Oslo and is entering the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony as I write this. Since the moment he arrived he has pretty much been inundated with messages from concerned citizens of all kinds, including a large contingent of Greenpeace activists with several direct communications for him.

We’ve been urging Obama to earn his Nobel Peace Prize by leading the world to a fair, ambitious, and legally binding climate treaty in Copenhagen when he attends the UN climate summit next week. 

Seriously, my Greenpeace Nordic colleagues and the crew of the Rainbow Warrior here in Oslo have been very busy.


Yesterday I posted a video of this “snow banner” they did out by the Oslo airport so that when President Obama’s plane landed here in Oslo, he was be greeted by a reminder that it’s “Our climate, your decision.”



This was but the first of many Greenpeace direct communications to Obama here in Oslo.

Several other messages were waiting for Obama as he traveled through Oslo: reverse graffiti made by pressure-washing stencils reading “Change the Politics, Save the Climate” on public structures:





We were also out there with signs and a physical version of that projection I posted last night, the one with Obama and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. Here’s a quick video of us greeting Obama as he arrives at the Prime Minister’s office and again later as he arrives at his hotel:



In the past few days, the Greenpeace Oslo team has made plenty of other attempts to communicate our message to Obama. They launched Greenpeace’s earth-shaped hot balloon right by City Hall, where the award ceremony will take place:




Speaking of City Hall, the director of Greenpeace's Norway office, Truls Gulowsen
, was inside the ceremony itself — check out this pic of him and Obama!



The Rainbow Warrior had a couple messages for him, as you saw in my video blog from yesterday. And then of course we held the candle light vigil last night. Here’s a video I shot of that (sorry it’s kinda dark, but my video camera doesn’t have a light on it):



I'm up here in Oslo, Norway to help our local Greenpeace activists and the crew of the Rainbow Warrior congratulate US President Barack Obama on winning the Nobel Peace Prize, which he'll be awarded in a ceremony at City Hall tomorrow. Our message for Obama is simple: You won it, now earn it. Which is to say, in order to live up to the prestige of the Peace Prize, he needs to go down to Copenhagen next week and help establish a fair, ambitious, and legally-binding climate treaty at the UN climate summit so that this doesn't become reality:


© Christian Aslund/Greenpeace

I shot this quick and dirty video to give you a glimpse of the Rainbow Warrior with its banner messages for Obama:


Traditionally, the people of Oslo hold a candle-light vigil the night before the ceremony for the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, but Obama isn't coming until tomorrow. We're having the vigil tonight anyway, and expect hundreds of concerned citizens to show up to help us call for leadership from the US president.

My colleagues here in Oslo have already been extremely busy sending messages to Obama in some very clever ways, as you can see in the pic above. When he gets here tomorrow he'll be welcomed Greenpeace-style as soon as he arrives at the airport, while he drives through town, and when he gets to City Hall to accept his award. Stay tuned, I'm going to have lots of video and photos for you.

The photo at the top of this post is a projection my colleagues here in the Oslo office did on the building where the prime minister's office is. In other words, the very same building where Norway's Jens Stoltenberg and Barack Obama will be meeting tomorrow to talk politics. The projection repurposes one of our airport adverts, but puts the Norwegian prime minister on there along with Obama to call on both of them to lead the way on climate change. I think it looks fabulous.

Update: You can't watch it online any more, obviously, but you can watch the whole thing right here.

At 8:00PM Copenhagen time — 2:00PM Eastern, 11:00AM Pacific — you can watch our "side event" live online. It’s rather descriptively entitled, “Yes He Can! How President Obama Can Deliver Stronger Emissions Reductions.”

Though the UN climate summit is alredy upon us and it is now the 11th hour, Obama can still get it right. He can still inspire the whole world to take the necessary actions that will avert a total climate catastrophe. We’ve assembled a panel for our side event to layout just how he can do that. The speakers include:

• Greenpeace USA's very own Kyle Ash, global warming policy advisor;
• Kassie Segal, a lawyer from the Center for Biological Diversity;
• Marcelo Furtado, executive director of Greenpeace Brazil, who will give us the international perspective.

Keep in mind that this is a livestream from a conference center with over 20,000 people inside of it, all of whom are probably furiously tweeting, blogging, and emailing the folks back home. So there might be intermittent delays in the webcast. Just bear with us.

Also bear in mind that while this is a very exciting time, as we’re literally here witnessing negotiations on the future of the planet, this is going to be an in-depth policy and legislative discussion. There will be some powerpoint presentations, but otherwise nothing you’d call visually stimulating. Still, it should be very interesting if, you know, you’re into this kind of thing.

Starts in about an hour, tune in!

Kumi Naidoo, GPI executive director and head of the GCCA, just handed a petition signed by 10 million people calling for an ambitious climate treaty to the prime minister of Denmark, Lars Løkke Rasmussen. The petition hand-over took place at an event held inside the Bella Center here at the Copenhagen climate summit.



Along with the petition, Kumi also presented Rasmussen with a pen he could use “to sign a fair, ambitious, and binding treaty.”



Legendary activist and 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai also spoke at the event. I have to say, it was a real treat to see her in person. Check out these pics of Kumi and Wangari with several of the youth delegates who were there to help drive home the message that there are more than 10 million people calling for climate action.

Another day has dawned cold and gray here in Copenhagen, but there’s plenty of reason for excitement and optimism.

Greenpeace of course has a delegation on the ground representing the millions of activists worldwide who have taken action to call for a deal that will do what the science says we must do to avert an utter climate catastrophe. I’m lucky enough to be part of the web team that will be updating you on what's happening both inside and outside the UN climate summit.

I’ll be working alongside some other fabulous Greenpeace webbies. We shot this video to introduce ourselves:


The pieces are all in place for a fair, ambitious, and legally-binding climate deal here in Copenhagen. All that’s lacking is the political will to make it happen.

But, as our executive director, Kumi Naidoo, told a packed house at Copenhagen University last night, our leaders all seem to suffer from a “common medical condition:” they’re hard of hearing when it comes to calls for bold action on climate change. The Greenpeace delegation is here to remind the people negotiating the future of the planet here in Copenhagen that millions of you are calling for them to live up to their moral obligation.

Today over 56 newspapers from all over the world are joining the call “because humanity faces a profound emergency.” These papers are all printing the same editorial – in 20 languages – which states, in part:

Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year's inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world's response has been feeble and half-hearted.

But there is more than enough reason to have hope that these negotiations could be the turning point. Just yesterday, for instance, South Africa became the latest country to announce the emissions reductions targets they were putting on the table: 34% below business as usual over the next 10 years, peaking at 42% by 2025. This makes South Africa “one of the stars of the negotiations.” Let’s hope the other delegates at the conference are decent enough at astral navigation to follow their lead!

Stay tuned for more updates.

President Obama has announced that he will now come to Copenhagen on December 18th, the same day as other heads of state. This is most certainly welcome news. All the elements are now in place for world leaders to move forward and agree to a legally binding treaty in Copenhagen to stop climate chaos.

Now that Obama has moved the date of his trip, however, he needs to move the US's emissions targets and financial commitments to be in line with what climate science demands so that this doesn't become reality:

I just got to Copenhagen a few hours ago, and this being my first visit to the city I was of course looking out the window of the plane as we approached Kastrup airport. And lo and behold, there was the Greenpeace ship Beluga II with a 15x20 meter banner (about 50x65 feet) attached to its stern, welcoming delegates to the UN climate summit with the message "Stop Climate Change Here."




Images © Christian Aslund/Greenpeace

Once delegates get into the airport, they're greeted with these signs portraying a possible future that we're hoping they work to avert while here in Copenhagen: