12 days until the UN Climate Talks in Copenhagen, and momentum seems to be growing.
The breaking news on the Huffington Post this morning is that the White House will be announcing that President Obama is going to attend. At least 65 other heads of state will also be at the Copenhagen table, although two big players, China and India, have not yet responded to the formal invitation sent out last week by the Danish government. Back in September, the first leader to commit to attending was Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown. He asserted that it was heads of governments who would be able to negotiate and strike a deal. With more and more heads of state following his lead, the chance that a fair, ambitious, and binding deal may be reached increases, although it is by no means guaranteed. To read more analysis of the gaining momentum, check out “Copenhagen talks ready for take off: 5, 4, 3…” on Grist.org.
The activist organization Avaaz.org is raising funds to send more negotiators from small, low-lying island states that are most affected by climate change. The bigger, wealthier, more polluting nations can afford to send large numbers of negotiators to Copenhagen. However, for people living in small, low-lying island states, a fair, ambitious and binding global climate treaty is necessary for their countries’ very survival, but they often have trouble sending even one or two negotiators to UN climate summits. As a result, Avaaz.org is spearheading a campaign to help negotiators from smaller, climate-vulnerable nations attend. Their website states:
At the Copenhagen talks in December, we can’t afford for voices of moral authority to go unheard.
If each of us chips in, we can help with airfare, food, and housing to help negotiators press for bold action — and for advocates to amplify their voices: