I was late with getting the post out on the climate bill in my own state and I don't want to do that again. I have written about this before at the post Taking Global Actions to Protect the Global Climate, but there are actions coming up far sooner than the Copenhagen summit in December. Two days in particular, 21 September 2009 and 24 October 2009. These actions are from both the institutional and grassroots levels, both educational and activist. As usual, I am re-blogging, highlighting relevant points and providing a few more links.
The The UN Foundation Climate and Energy Team (Reid, Ryan, Jana, Kurt, and John) reminds us that Copenhagen will host pivotal UN-led negotiations toward a new international agreement to combat climate change.
The goal: to build a comprehensive framework to reduce emissions, hold all countries -- developed and developing -- to higher standards, and match the speed and scale of global response to the rapidly worsening climate change.
World leaders have their work cut out for them. But what they decide and how quickly they take action will have a profound effect on all of us.
The first step is to get educated on the issue. You can read more about the road to Copenhagen at our Web site, and see how climate frameworks have progressed over the past 20 years. And check out this glossary of common terms we'll be using as the campaign continues.
The problem is that a recent story 'Comprenhensive' climate treaty ruled out for Copenhagen that I found in the China Daily asserts:
The Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Yvo De Boer ruled out the possibility that a “comprehensive” international climate treaty will be ratified at Copenhagen in December.I have not, as of yet, seen the story anywhere else yet, but it gives all the more justification for the grassroots actions initiated by Avaaz. More than 100,000, Avaaz members (over 96%), took part worldwide and voted to organise a massive global wake-up call on climate change on September 21,De Boer, speaking at a press conference during the ongoing Summer Davos in Dalian, Northeast China said it is "impossible to craft and draft" a detailed climate treaty in "the time that remains" to address climate change.
"That is not possible. But it is also not necessary," he said, "I think what Copenhagen has to achieve is a basic political understanding" on the essential issues of climate change.
Many will be registering a climate wake-up call event to take place in your local area on the 21st. The goal is to organise thousands of wake-up events (or "flashmobs") in public places all over the world -- showing a massive public demand for our lagging leaders to sign a fair and binding deal to stop climate catastrophe and unleash a new green economy this year. These events around the world will then be compiled into a powerful package and delivered to world leaders and the media at the UN climate summit the next day!
Click here to register a climate wake-up event in your area ,
"flashmobs" -- fun, peaceful demonstrations in which participants assemble suddenly in a public place, blending in with the crowd, perform an unusual action simultaneously for a few minutes, and then quickly disperse.
The Global Wake-Up Call is a joint effort of the TckTckTck Campaign, named for the "tck"ing of a clock as time runs short. Through TckTckTck, Avaaz is working closely with groups like 350.org, Oxfam, and Greenpeace; with the producers of the film The Age of Stupid (which will showcase the Wake-Up Call at their global premiere!), and with mayors, houses of worship, and famous entertainers to raise a cry that will be heard around the world.
It's an extraordinary moment for the global climate movement -- and just in time, on the eve of this year's final meetings of heads of government at the UN and G20 summits. The stakes are vast. The climate crisis isn't waiting, and neither can we.
It's also an extraordinary moment for Avaaz: the first time we've come together, massively and everywhere on earth, to move our online network into an offline community in action. If our leaders don't respond this time, we'll keep coming back -- bigger and bigger, bolder and bolder -- until they do. We all share a commitment to a better world. Now is our time to be heard.
Related Posts:
One of the Morally Urgent Questions of Our Moment
7th of 8 days: 8 Goals Personal Stories behind the Millennium Development Goals
2 Steps Forward, 2 Degrees Back
Different Paths to Saving the Climate - All Up Hill
