CCN @ COP15

We are 5 days away from the much-anticipated UNFCCC negotiations in Copenhagen and there has been a lot of buzz around what we are going to get out of these negotiations. Scandal emails have been flying across the news, heads of states are committing to attend, and they announced that they are pushing the treaty signing back 6 months to a conference in Mexico City. This doesn’t leave a lot of hope for small island nations and the young people of the world. What are these leaders doing? Why can’t they get it together? But as I sat down for my African thanksgiving I realized that we have been making strides, that we very well may see something good come out of these negotiations and that it really does no good to give up hope before Copenhagen even begins.

There are rumors that tens of thousands of people will be descending upon the city, including hundreds of youth and at least 60 heads of state, including President Obama. In addition, I just got wind that China has agreed on a carbon growth cap. They claimed that they will “nearly halve the ratio of pollution to GDP over the next decade” which is a huge step for the worlds’ largest carbon emitter. In addition, Obama came out with a statement saying that they will lay out an emissions cutting plan in Copenhagen. With these two powerhouses on board, for the most part, it brings in a lot of hope that the negotiations won’t be a total bust.

Of course we are still waiting on the stale mate of the Senate Climate Bill, and no we haven’t heard promises from India to cut its’ emissions. But, India has come out with a statement on aims for a 20 gigawatts of solar energy capacity by 2022. Hopefully this energy offsets their fossil fuel use.

The point I’m trying to make is that it is crunch time and regardless of whether or not we are going to see the signing of a new treaty there are changes in the making and we, the CCN UNFCCC delegation, is going to go to Copenhagen and MAKE SOME NOISE