Grassroots organizations and think tanks from across Southeast Asia gathered in Bangkok earlier this week to refine a people’s agenda for the United Nations climate negotiations that will culminate in Copenhagen this December. The conference, titled, “The People’s Movement on Climate Change,” reaffirmed a fact that’s often forgotten in the mainstream media’s coverage of the climate crisis: the solutions to global warming won’t only come from scientists and engineers, but from farmers, fisherfolk, indigenous peoples, and the myriad of other people who have lived closely with the changing environment for generations.

The technicalities and acronyms of international climate negotiations often obscures the moral imperative of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and helping the world’s poor adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change. That imperative was laid out at the Bangkok conference in both impassioned language and startling statistics. Asia contains 60% of the global population. In the last ten years, 43% of natural disasters and a stunning 70% of the lives lost in disasters have occurred in the region. Over 50% of Asia’s massive population is in low-lying areas susceptible to sea-level rise; 60 to 80% are involved in agriculture and are impacted by changing weather cycles. As a conference attendee said of Vietnam, “It’s preparing for the worst.”

At the same time, the two day conference in Bangkok conveyed a sense of excitement and possibility in the new collaborations and campaigns being strategized. 350.org is looking forward to playing an active role in the region, working with a diversity of group including indigenous women’s organizations, web-savvy youth networks, sustainable development foundations, and think-tanks dedicated to promoting climate justice. As an international climate campaign, we’ll be helping develop education materials and projects on global warming and plan for a mobilization around the final United Nations “inter-sessional” climate meeting, a lead up conference in early October to the Copenhagen summit. And of course, 350.org and our new partners will be strategizing about the October 24 International Day of Climate Action. Ideas for creative actions were already bubbling up at the conference.

Perhaps most importantly, we hope that 350.org can play a small role in promoting a new development paradigm centered on thesimple yet powerful idea of “sharing.” As many participants at the Bangkok conference discussed, the solutions to get us back to 350 ppm aren’t just high-tech solar panels and wind turbines, but long traditions of indigenous knowledge, sustainable agricultural practices, and forest stewardship. I had a good laugh with an indigenous leader from the Philippines about how “organic vegetables” and “community gardens” were a current fad San Francisco, where I’m normally based. “We’ve been doing that forever!” she said. At the same time, participants quickly acknowledged the need for rural electrification programs, new technologies, and financial assistance for adaptation to the impacts of climate change. Clearly there are plenty of opportunities for sharing in the future. It’s my hope that October 24 can be one of the most powerful and beautiful displays of sharing to date.

On Sunday, the first UN Climate Talks of 2009 begin in Bonn, Germany.  It's hard to describe just how wonky and boring these talks can be--and equally hard to describe how important they are for the future of the planet.

These talks in Bonn will start to set the stage for the upcoming talks in Copenhagen, which will establish a global treaty that will determine how (or more importantly, if) the world actually solves the climate crisis.

Jeremy and Will, members of the 350.org team based in Europe, will be updating us all on progress (or lack thereof) in Bonn throughout the week.  Expect more once the meetings get rolling, but Will just sent us this rather frantic dispatch about an article in Reuters:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Will Bates <will@350.org>
Date: Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 10:10 AM
Subject: REQ: Can someone else blog this?

350 is already being talked about in Bonn?!? Check it out:

http://in.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idINTRE52Q2E820090327

Don't know how this happened, but I'll certainly dig up what I can here. 

WB
---------------------------------

I just hunted down the source: 350 is called out as a possible long-term target in this summary document here: http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/awglca5/eng/04p02.pdf

According to the author of the document, "There is broad support by Parties for a science-based indicative goal for the reduction of global emissions of greenhouse gases to the middle of the century."

We all know what that should be: nothing higher than 350.

But, he goes on to say: "There is a lack of convergence on the issue of...the long-term goal and pathways to it."

Well, that quote perfectfully illustrates a crucial, strategic leverage point of the international climate movement.  If all of us all over the world can create convergence on the issue of the long-term goal, we ratchet up the scale of the global ambition, resources, and effort we devote to actually solving the climate crisis. 

More from Bonn soon--have a great weekend everyone!

This is a great piece reposted from our allies over at 1Sky. Gillian Caldwell, Executive Director of 1Sky, sat down with Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the IPCC, and learned why he thinks that 450ppm is a much too high target.

I'm here at the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship in Oxford and just got out of a private discussion with Dr. R.K. Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.