People’s cautious hope for a global, binding agreement and commitment to cooling the warming planet was justified, but unfulfilled.  Negotiations early in the talks went nowhere fast.  A late scramble by presidents and prime ministers to at least agree to something with mutually acceptable benchmark came up empty.  No binding agreement was reached, delaying any enforceable or standardized way to address climate change and emission reductions until later talks (though President Obama and other US lawmakers took the chance to laud a “good first step” towards an agreement).  Some of the biggest polluters, such as China and India, were looked at as culprits by some Global North countries, especially as China refused to open up to any external oversight.

Yet as these countries continue to develop and increase their carbon footprints through growth of both population and industrial technology, the climate debt owed to the developing countries for decades of carbon emissions, and the worst per capita carbon emitters‘ (Australia, the U.S., and Britain) resistance to regulations, contributed to a WTO-reminiscent rift between First and Third worlds.  The main notable commitment negotiators could agree upon was that the science requires us to (somehow) prevent a global temperature rise of more than 2 degrees, which representatives from island nations still said could almost completely destroy them.  No common action plan for preventing this temperature rise was given, leaving countries to self-regulate and again without any binding commitment to ending or curbing the emissions from specific industries, businesses, or technologies.  World leaders jockeyed for an economic advantage by trying to ensure that the agreement wouldn’t hurt their bottom line, largely avoiding the question of who would be picking up the tab for potential cleaner climate projects worldwide – putting us and the earth at an extreme disadvantage.  Though some funding was committed to help developing countries install clean energy and cut emissions, those countries also say it’s nowhere near enough.

Some reactions from environmental NGOs and activists such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, World Development Movement, Bill McKibben, and climate scientest Jim Hansen saw the talks as a failure, while World Wildlife Fund, National Resources Defense Council, and the Sierra Club were glad to see one step in the right direction.  Out in the streets, some of the largest demonstrations of the decade took place, along with an alternate Klimaforum09 featuring 50,000 activists and speakers such as Vandana Shiva and Naomi Klein.  The Yes Men were in action as well, highlighting Canada’s dangerous environmental policies.  “Climate Justice” was certainly the rallying cry outside the talks, perhaps emboldening negotiators and activists from developing nations on the inside, and marking the “emergence” of the Climate Justice Movement.  North-South coalitions engaged in non-violent direct action in a Reclaim Power! demonstration, and many different actions took place during the weeks of the talks.  On some days, specific issues such as agriculture, borders, farmers’ rights, and reparations for climate debt became the focus.  Police reaction also became a problem, with raids on activist houses before demonstrations, violent suppression of marches and rallies, and 968 people detained at one December 12th action.  For continued coverage, information on the Climate Justice Movement coming together outside the talks, and support of the demonstrations, check out http://www.climate-justice-action.org/.

These actions took a mostly two-pronged approach: First, calling out the flawed and exclusionary ways that the current ineternational regime has arrived at weak, corporate-driven measures to address climate change.  Then, demanding that we invite everyone in to make decisions on how we can really bring balance back to the planet in a just, real, and effective way.  In New York, activists focused on countering and educating about the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACESA), which focuses chiefly on a carbon market, cap and trade system to mitigate climate change.  The NRDC, EDF, and the Nature Conservancy joined with major polluters such as DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Alcoa Aluminum to craft the act.  Activists in San Francisco acted by blocking four lanes of traffic, highlighting Chevron’s dangerous polluting in the area and the misguided ACESA.  In Pittsburgh, Greenpeace and others pushed for a strong international climate treaty as a part of G20 meetings and the COP15 talks, and for including all voices, especially those marginalized by the current system of decision making: indigenous peoples, people of color, working people.

The Mobilization for Climate Justice is calling for mass, non-violent civil disobedience on November 30th (the anniversary of the protests that shut-down the WTO and coincidentally, the opening day of a new round of WTO talks), and to keep the pressure on during the COP15 talks in December.  It’s urgent and necessary to become more disruptive and direct in advocating for climate justice, as it’s becoming obvious that the current decision-making regime insists on business as usual – cutting out voices calling for strict, just, life-saving measures to stop a changing climate, and bowing to corporate interests.

Just as the WTO, IMF/World Bank, Gs 7 through 20, and FTA implementers have continued to marginalize ordinary people around the world to further corporate profit in general, the current flurry of talks and activity around climate change are falling into the same pattern.  By most accounts, people left out of the dialogue (which is most of us, but especially those in the Global South, indigenous and working people everywhere, people of color, etc.) will also bear the brunt of the chaos and destruction that will follow climate change.  We must act to expose the “social, ecological, political and economic causes of the climate crisis”, and work to transform those causes and cool the planet, before its too late.  The direct, civilly-disobedient actions that started late last year and have coalesced this past week are a great start and part of that movement, and we can expect them to continue until the victories are realized.