Good Magazine - The GOOD Guide to COP15 - What Now?

This is the final post in the series (so far at least) and gives you information on what you can do to help from home. I urge you to take their advice and contact your representatives at the COP15 conference. Tell them what you think should be done and maybe your voice will be heard.

Keep track of the treaty: Negotiators are working on a draft treaty—raising objections, making changes, and shaping the fate of the world. Keep track of it at 350.org/treaty-tracker.

Get to know the negotiators: Find out who will represent your country in Copenhagen and what they think. Adoptanegotiator.org has “trackers” from 11 countries following the meetings leading up to Copenhagen “so you can stay up to date and either support or put pressure on your country’s climate negotiator to aim for a safe and fair deal.”

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Good Magazine - The GOOD Guide to COP15 - The Fire this Time: Copenhagen and the War for the Future

I have a new favorite in this series. This article is rife with quotations about how the world is going to be given into the hands of the younger generation, and we need to fight to make it a place worth living in.

To be young and aware is to know you’re being lied to; to know that a bright green future is possible; to know that we can reimagine the world, rebuild our cities, redesign our lives, retool our factories, distribute innovation and creativity and all live in a world that is not only better than the alternative, but much better than the world we have now.

That which is unsustainable cannot go on. Unsustainable things that are propped up too long snap and collapse suddenly. Our way of life is unsustainable. The sooner we transform our economy into one that can generate sustainable prosperity, the better off we’ll be, and with every passing day, the risks of catastrophe grow larger and more certain. We need change now.

These shouldn’t be radical statements; they’re all demonstrably true. Yet they cleave right down the middle of what is fast becoming the largest generation gap in at least 40 years, a growing split between people under 30 and people over 60.

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Good Magazine - The GOOD Guide to COP15 - Dispatches from the Future, Today

This is another interesting entry (they just keep getting better!) that asked several leaders of environmental organizations what they might be posting on their blogs in January after the conclusion of the conference. They all seem cautiously optimistic and everyone has their own version of events.

The conference is still a few months away, but we asked several activists to predict what they will be talking about after the conference wraps up. Here is what they think they’re going to be saying next January:

Richard Graves, founder of Fired Up Media, blogger for the TckTckTck campaign, and editor of ItsGettingHotinHere.org:

What surprised me was the startling diversity of groups, beyond environmentalists, that got involved—from youth groups to union leaders to the Dalai Lama to the Pope. People realized that this is bigger than polar bears and icebergs.

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Good Magazine - The GOOD Guide to COP15 - The Issues

This is my favorite of these installments so far. This post briefly describes many of the major issues that will be discussed in Copenhagen, and then gives a one sentence description of what should happen and what will most likely happen. It then grades each issue on its likelihood of being satisfactorily resolved in Copenhagen.

End Goal

The long-term goals of preserving a habitable planet will effectively be boiled down to a single number: the target concentration of CO² in the atmosphere, measured in parts per million. For the past few years, conventional wisdom has called for a target of 450 ppm. But the most recent science points to something more conservative: A 350 ppm ceiling is required if, as the NASA climatologist Jim Hansen puts it, “humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted.” More than 80 developing nations and small island nations support the 350 target, as do many international environmental, human rights, and justice organizations.

What should happen: 350 ppm.

What will happen: It depends on grassroots pressure.

Grade for Predicted Final Compromise: B

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The New York Times - Obama Hobbled in Fight Against Global Warming

This article talks about how the US, or any other country, may not be able to agree to a as much of a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions as was hoped. One of the reasons, at least so far as the US is concerned, is that congress may not be willing to budge on this matter. Anyway, go ahead and read the article, it's interesting.

WASHINGTON — President Obama came into office pledging to end eight years of American inaction on climate change under President George W. Bush, and all year he has promised that the United States would lead the way toward a global agreement in Copenhagen next month to address the warming planet.

But this weekend in Singapore, Mr. Obama was forced to acknowledge that a comprehensive climate deal was beyond reach this year. Instead, he and other world leaders agreed that they would work toward a more modest interim agreement with a promise to renew work toward a binding treaty next year.

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Good Magazine - The GOOD Guide to COP15

GOOD recently published a four eight part series on COP15. Here are the parts in order of publication. There are posts for each part, but for ease of browsing them I also created this one.

1. An Introduction (Source)
2. A Primer (Source)
3. The Players (Source)
4. The Treaty (Source)
5. The Issues (Source)
6. Dispatches from the Future, Today (Source)
7. The Fire this Time: Copenhagen and the War for the Future (Source)
8. Now What? (Source)

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Update: A second batch of publications in this series was released on 11/17

Good Magazine - The GOOD Guide to COP15 - The Treaty

A quick summary of the "ideal" COP15 treaty. As the quote says it was drafted by several international groups and experts from around the world. This is what would happen if wishes came true folks.

The Copenhagen Climate Treaty is a proposal for what an ideal vision of a COP15 agreement might look like. The treaty was drafted by Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund, IndyACT (the league of independent activists), Germanwatch, the David Suzuki Foundation, the National Ecological Centre of Ukraine, and experts from around the world. The prospective document was distributed to negotiators from the 192 attending nations with the hope that it would influence what happens at the conference. Here is a summary of the key points...

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Good Magazine - The GOOD Guide to COP15 - The Players

The quoted text is everything on the page, but there is one thing missing - a nice graphic that lets you look at different countries and groups that will be attending the conference.

When the United Nations holds its international get-togethers, countries are traditionally sorted into five regional groups: African states, Asian states, Eastern European states, Latin American and Caribbean states, and Western European and other states (incidentally probably the only time the United States gets listed as “other”).

In theory, these groupings give smaller countries a chance to speak as part of a louder, unified voice. In practice, though, the groupings have far less of an impact on negotiations than the preexisting alliances between different nations. These are some of the better-known examples.

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Good Magazine - The GOOD Guide to COP15 - A Primer

Basically a bit more background on COP15, what will be happening there and other seemingly random facts. Interesting, but not really all that important after the part titled "A brief history of carbon". Again, a very short read that does provide a little info about COP15.

Copenhagen, ho!

There’s a famous Danish proverb that roughly translates to, “He who is afraid of asking is ashamed of learning.” So, lest you get caught in a cycle of fear and shame in anticipation of the world’s convergence on Copenhagen, we offer this primer on all things COP15—and all things Copenhagen.

Point of Clarification: The COP in COP15 doesn’t stand for Copenhagen. It stands for Conference of the Parties, and it’s the 15th such event. You’re probably most familiar with COP8, which took place in Kyoto, Japan, in 1992.

When is it? December 7 to 18, 2009

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Good Magazine - The GOOD Guide to COP15 - An Introduction

A bit of basic background on COP15 - the Kyoto Protocol, what is hoped to be accomplished. It's very short (about 1/3 of it is posted here) but has a bit of useful information for those unfamiliar with what COP15 is.

The Most Important Meeting in History

In 1997, delegates from all over the world met in Japan to create a worldwide framework for reducing carbon emissions. The resulting treaty, which took effect in 2005, aimed to reduce global emissions by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels. Since then, the Kyoto Protocol has been the watchword of environmentalists everywhere—a shorthand for the kind of international cooperation needed to fight climate change (and a reminder of the U.S. Senate’s embarrassing refusal to get on board).

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