An international Greenpeace contingent attended yesterday's high level UN meeting on climate change. Athena was there and felt compelled to put down her thoughts on the meeting. Here they are:

My name is Athena and I have been called a climate “policy wonk,” having followed the climate negotiating process for almost 15 years. Today though I write as a mother...

While waiting for the opening of the UN High Level Summit on Climate Change here in New York, the cheerful faces of my three children Gab, Gio and Gavin keep flashing into my mind.

They have been my inspiration, my driving force...ensuring their safe future and a healthy environment for them to grow into have been at the core of my work with the environmental movement and with Greenpeace in particular. And Dr. Pachauri (head of the UN’s scientific body) once again outlined why we all, especially those parents, need to stay involved on this issue.

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Another update from straight talking policy adviser Daniel:

Last week was not a good one to be a tourist in Geneva. It was raining cats and dogs and as a private individual you could not get a tour of the United Nations headquarters. This beautiful building was open only for business leaders as the Second Global Compact Leaders Summit was bringing the UN Secretary General and several hundred CEOs to town. So much for openness and transparency.

The Global Compact sounds like a good idea. Its principles are worthy. They are about human rights and environmental protection and fighting corruption. The trouble is: The Compact does not enforce these principles at all. Global Compact Principle 7, for example, calls for a "precautionary approach to environmental challenges". That sounds good. Greenpeace likes precaution - which basically means that if you are not certain if something is safe or not, well, you don’t do it. Yet companies that ignore precaution by producing genetically modified organisms, such as Novartis, are members of the Compact. Areva, which produces dangerous nuclear power are allowed to be members of the Pact. The UN is endangering a very high value good, it's reputation, by associating its name with such activities through the Global Compact. It's called "bluewash" - looking good by associating yourself with the UN.

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Update from Daniel at the summit -

As G8 leaders are just sitting down for their last lunch, a special G8 menu has mysteriously appeared at the G8 media centre. They have served us nice cake and coffee here over the last few days. But the G8 leaders clearly were not content with sipping champagne behind the security fence and served up a different menu to the rest of the world. After a cocktail they sat down to "eight prawns grilled under a warm climate" and they finished off their meal with a "Not so Easy to Digestif". I wish our leaders put as much effort into saving our planet as some wonderful NGO colleagues put into this funny spoof!

The G8 did not deliver what they needed to. But I leave Heiligendamm more upbeat than I expected. Greenpeace did a wonderful and dramatic action, that - as one TV presenter today told me - "produced the best Greenpeace pictures in years". We raised the temperature on climate change and now have a real fighting chance to achieve progress at the next climate conference in Bali in December. The G8 failed the world, no question about it. But the G8 also felt the pressure from the real world - from all of you. We live to fight another day. Please help us build up the pressure further. You can start by joining our energy revolution
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[ © Axel Schmidt/DDP ]

Jo is our very busy press officer at the summit's media centre. Here's her first hand account from today.

From Jo:

It wasn't until I saw the footage on the super-sized screens in the media centre that I really realized what was happening. A full on police chase with Greenpeace RIBS (rigid inflatable boats). As I watched, a police boat rammed one of our inflatables, knocking activists into the water. Six of our people suffered severely heavy bruising, but fortunately no one was more seriously hurt.

I ran out to the balcony, overlooking the beach - where we were holding a press conference. What I found was a massive crowd of people, cameras and notebooks everywhere. I pushed my way to the front - and lo and behold, there were more Greenpeace boats, being chased by police right in front of us.

It was an amazing feeling seeing the boats go past, with a huge crowd watching a seriously great action. I lost Daniel and Tobias in a surge of media interviews, as I ran back in to get a press release ready.

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Here's the statement from our team at the summit:

Greenpeace condemned G8 leaders for failing to live up to their historic responsibility for climate change by not agreeing to keep mean temperature rise below 2 degrees compared to pre-industrial levels. The deal is "clearly not enough to prevent dangerous climate change" said Daniel Mittler, climate policy advisor of Greenpeace International.

Greenpeace welcomed that the G8 gave a political mandate for a start of serious negotiations for the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol to start at the climate negotiations in Bali in December.

The US isolation in refusing to accept binding emission cuts has become obvious at this meeting. "The Bush administration have agreed to "seriously consider" that the rest of the world is setting reduction targets, but is as far away as from agreeing to such targets themselves as ever" said Mittler.

Greenpeace reminded the G8 governments that they need to reduce their emissions by 80-90% by 2050 if the world is to avoid catastrophic climate change. "Governments failed to commit to what science tells us is necessary here. They must now urgently do so at the United Nations."

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Update: Just found more footage and photos on der Spiegel.

Update 2: Just got good news, some severe bruising and one activist will have to stay in the hospital a bit longer - but no serious injuries. The boats and 19 people remain in police custody.

Climate change is a global emergency. Yet, despite the mountains of scientific evidence, that message apparently isn't getting through to our world leaders. Today, Blair seemed to cave to Bush on the idea of the G8 agreeing to specific carbon dioxide reduction targets. Without specific goals it's all talk, mutual backslapping and more procrastination - just what the Bush administration wants.

So this morning, 24 Greenpeace activists, using 11 speedboats took the message "G8: Act Now!" to the waters around the Heilingendamm summit. They entered the outer restricted area at 11am, informing the police as they did so. They came in from both east and west sides, entering into the inner restricted zone 10 minutes later.

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Officially, it's only day two of the summit, but there's already been a tons of political drama. For those of you just coming to the story, Greenpeace UK has a good overview up on their site. Here's an excerpt:

So the sleeves are being rolled up on all sides for an intense bout of negotiation. What would success look like?

Well, it's all down to Merkel, and how far she's willing to push it. Leaving aside the possibility that Bush has a Damascene conversion and decides he wants to adopt ambitious, mandatory targets through the UN, the next best result will be for Merkel to ignore him, and focus on the seven other G8 countries that have ratified Kyoto.

If Bush keeps trying to sabotage the process, Merkel needs to keep pushing forward, without worrying about the US. If these seven countries can agree on mandatory and meaningful emissions reduction targets, working within the UN framework, then the G8 will have been a success.

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My favorite headline of the G8 so far, "Bush, Merkel vow to fight poverty, disagree on climate". This follows what was apparently a very nice lunch meeting between the two of them. From the article:

"But Bush made no reference to Merkel's demands that G8 leaders commit to cutting global greenhouse gas emissions to 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 and limiting the worldwide temperature rise this century to 2 degrees Celsius.

Merkel, for her part, recognized that while the US and Germany agreed on combating poverty in Africa, there were other "areas here and there" which needed further discussion."

In perhaps not unrelated news, today German police boarded the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise - even though it was well outside the summit security zone. The police boarded without a search warrant and confined the 24 crew before seizing Greenpeace equipment including engines from inflatables, making the boats unusable, and the hull of a Greenpeace hot air balloon.

I wonder if, at any point during the lunch, Merkel and George "there ought to be limits to free speech" Bush touched on how far a government should go to ensure that leaders of the world's wealthiest nations can meet without the inconvenience of protest.

Greenpeace statement in response Merkel/Bush comments today.

From the BBC: Who are the G8 protesters?

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In total, more than 600 people formed this human banner in the city harbour of Rostock! It said, "G8: ACT NOW!" Underneath the human banner, a second banner read "Stop Global Warming."

[photo: © Greenpeace / Guenther Menn]

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Update from Agnes: Several members of the Solar Generation, together with students from People and Planet, took part yesterday in a largely peaceful G8 demonstration in Rostock.

Carrying huge banners and inflatable snowmen, people marched from Schlutuper Kreuz to the Rostock City Harbour to call on G8 leaders to take action on climate change. Leaders from the Group of 8 countries are meeting in Heiligendamm next week to discuss issues like social justice, climate change, and trade liberalisation. There were a number of riots during the demonstration but these involved only a few protesters.

Cheng qian of Solar Generation China delivered a speech before 80.000 people!, urging the G8 to ACT NOW. The Solar Drums group, as well as volunteers from Greenpeace Germany, were also there to join the demonstration.

[photo: © Greenpeace / Salvatore Barbera (Giona)]

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More from Daniel, one of our political advisors, on changes at the World Bank:

Bush has done it again. The US President has put loyalty ahead of merit by choosing Robert Zoellick as the new head of the World Bank. I have known Zoellick for a while. He was Bush's trade representative from 2001-2005. In that role, he pursued free trade at all costs at the World Trade Organization (WTO). In 2003, he started a WTO attack on Europe's genetic engineering restrictions.

In 2003, at the failed WTO talks in Cancun, Mexico, Zoellick famously threatened developing countries, that the US will pursue market access for US corporations to developing world markets in whichever way they see fit. I remember listening to his press conference with a certain shiver running down my spine.

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Athena is the face of Greenpeace's climate and energy campaign in Asia. She has just returned from Kyoto, where she led a team pressuring the Asian Development Bank to put their money where their mouths are and invest in Clean Energy. Here's her round up.

2 weeks ago I welcomed myself back to the city of Kyoto with high expectations: for the Asian Development Bank to honour the spirit of one of the most important environmental agreements in history – the Kyoto Protocol.

I finally got to see Kyoto on the last day of my visit to this historic city. A visit to the Kiyomizu-dera Temple and a walk along Gion made me appreciate its beauty – something I missed10 years ago during my first visit. The people of Kyoto should be proud of their home. The ADB could have made them even prouder, but they were a few steps short…

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Each 5th of May, Japan celebrates Children’s Day, or more specifically Boy’s Day. But this May 5th, 6 women from different sides of the world braved discomfort and made a stand to make a change. The 6 women were Solar Generation delegates working with Greenpeace to pressure the Asian Development Bank to fund the energy revolution at their annual meeting in Kyoto. To get our message across and to bring some colour to what was otherwise a boring meeting, we decided to stage a performance in keeping with our surroundings at the meeting's opening reception.

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Posted by Martin B at 9:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, back at the Kyoto International Conference Centre. I, Athena, Greenpeace International’s Asia climate campaigner, was here in December 1997. I was one of many, negotiating a historic agreement: The Kyoto Protocol . It still is the only legally binding global agreement aimed at stopping climate change. Today, ten years on, I am here to attend the 40th Annual General Meeting of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) . I am here to deliver a simple message. If the ADB wants to honour Kyoto, it must agree concrete steps for saving the climate at this historic place. It must decide to quit coal and put all its resources into funding a sustainable energy revolution in Asia.

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Under a (literally) stormy sky Greenpeace activists staged a "die in" today at the annual general meeting of Asia’s largest privately owned power utility - China Light and Power (CLP). Local activists where joined at the Hong Kong protest by representatives from communities in the Philippines, Tuvalu and Australia that suffer from coal industry pollution and climate change.

CLP derives most of its electricity from coal, and CLP’s CO2 emissions in 2006 were the highest in 14 years.

The twenty activists blockaded entrances at the meeting venue, enacting scenes of the climate devastation already being caused by CLP’s record levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Activists lay in front of 9 huge tombstones to symbolise the human cost of CLP’s activities across the Asia-Pacific. Two activists were able to get into the meeting as shareholders, and took their message directly to CLP's chairman.

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