This was our big action on the last day of the negotiations.  We had about 200 young people chanting “Survival is not Negotiable!” A beautiful expression of the growing Youth Climate Movement.

This photo was taken in Warsaw in an effort with Avaaz.org to save the European Union Climate Package from utter failure and destruction.  It wasn’t a total victory but we did manage to strengthen the package.  Straight from Avaaz:

In the final hours, under intense pressure from her own citizens and people around the world, Chancellor Merkel scaled back her demands for loopholes that would have resulted in millions of tonnes of C02 emissions and handouts to heavy industry. The EU climate package is deeply flawed–but at the same time, it’s an important reminder of the power of ordinary people to shape the decisions of their leaders.

It’s very important in the lead up to Copenhagen that we keep spreading our message of Climate Justice and the importance of Survival.  Right now, the treaty going into Copenhagen does not ensure our survival.  We must push hard to change this.

I helped organize this photo with Robert vanWaarden.  We had around 200-300 young people present and with so many dynamic personalities present it could have been difficult to really show just how beautiful the youth climate movement is.  I think we figured it out in the end…

Youth trainers at the Conference of Youth (COY), a conference for young activists, sharing skills and information right before the Conference Of Parties (COP) 14.

This was taken at the UNFCC Meetings Poznan, Poland at the start of the International Youth Delegation’s Survival Campaign.  This was largely successful at the time, getting 80 country delegations to sign on to our pledge.  This pledge called for a policy that ‘Safeguards the Survival of ALL Countries and Peoples.” I thought this shot was pretty poignant as an American our survival is at stake as well, something we usually take for granted.

Left to Right: Liz McDowell (moderator) from the UK Delegation, Ben Powless the Indigenous Peoples Caucus, and Deepa Gupta from the Indian Youth Delegation speak on behalf of the International Youth Delegation about the devastating impacts of Climate Change on their communities.