Herbert Docena

For some in the climate justice movement, the battle line in the global fight around climate change runs along the walls of the heavily fortified UN climate change summit venues: Outside, “the movement” or “the people” from different countries marching on the streets demanding “System Change Not Climate Change!”; Inside, the officials of states and corporations, fighting to keep the system unchanged. Thus, veteran activist...

As has become traditional since 1972, when the first UN conference on the environment was held in Stockholm, thousands of people from around the world once again gathered for an alternative “People’s Summit” in December (2014). They marched on the streets of Lima (Peru) while hundreds of state representatives met inside a military camp for the latest Conference of Parties (COP) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The...

As greenhouse gas emissions continue to soar after 20+ years of UN negotiations, world leaders are relying even more heavily on the market to save us from a catastrophic 4-degree centigrade warming; but a coalition of governments and social movements are fighting back. Herbert Docena reports from the UN Climate Change Conference that took place in Warsaw, November 11-22, 2013.   For the second year in a row, a super-typhoon...

Much of the post-conference analysis has centered on what words or phrases were included omitted in the final document, thus missing what can only be read between the lines. THE MOOD INSIDE THE WINDSOR BARRA HOTEL seemed more buoyant than in many of the over 3,000 other side-meetings taking place parallel to the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD). Here, at a suburb far from the favelas shadowing Copacabana or...

This December, thousands of officials, activists, lobbyists, and maybe even some superstars will fly to Durban for the 17th conference of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Next June, many will again fly to Rio to mark two decades since the signing of the UNFCCC and other environmental agreements. Twenty years have now passed since what many now agree were the most complex – and perhaps most consequential – intergovernmental...