Kerry, KeystoneXL, and the Courage Needed to Move Forward on Climate

Less than a year ago on the eve of the Rio+20 Earth Summit, then-Senator John Kerry gave a remarkable speech calling on the United States to display real leadership on clean energy and confront the reality of climate change. In Kerry's own words:

"We have made transformative changes before... We once burned wood, and then we transitioned to relying on oil and coal. We can make the leap to a mix of renewable energy sources such as hydro, wind and solar. Now we need to set our sights on the next transformation. As the old saying from the 1970s goes, “The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones, and the oil age is not going to end because we run out of oil.” Truer words could not be spoken."

Kerry at the UN Copenhagen Climate talks in 2009

Now that Kerry is Secretary of State, he has a chance to accelerate this transformation. Kerry's State Department will make the final recommendation to approve or reject the KeystoneXL tar sands pipeline (ultimately though, President Obama will make the final call).  As Obama's second term begins, rejecting the pipeline is the first major action that he and Kerry can take to show that the US is truly committed to bold action on climate.

The KeystoneXL pipeline would allow for large-scale expansion of extraction of the Alberta tar sands, a region in Canada of former boreal forest that contains a thick, tar-like sand that can be transformed into oil.  As the video below shows, the mining of tar sands results in the complete razing of the forest environment, complete with toxic residue ponds and the release of many cancer-causing chemicals.  Tar sands development also threatens the safety and human rights of the Beaver Lake Cree First Nation, whose ancestral lands fall within the extraction area.  The Beaver Lake Cree have a legal right to hunt and fish on their land for perpetuity, but this right is threatened by further development.  The tribe is suing the government of Canada to stop further extraction, but prolonged legal battles mean that it will take several years before a ruling.

In addition to the local environmental impacts and human rights violations of the Beaver Lake Cree, the tar sands are a huge threat to the stability of our planet's climate.  The tar sands region is the second largest store of carbon on the planet, and tar sands oil is is up to 37% more carbon intensive than standard crude oil.  If built, the KeystoneXL pipeline would allow for more tar sands extraction (and thus dramatically greater carbon emissions).  Over the next 40 years, the pipeline alone would be responsible for 7 gigatons of carbon emissions.  Since we're already emitting over 30 gigtatons per year and need to stay below 565 gigatons to prevent catastrophic warming, building the KeystoneXL would move us further down a path of self-destruction.  As the old saying goes, "When you are in a hole, the first thing you need to do is stop digging."

NASA climate scientist James Hansen is one of the most outspoken opponents of the pipeline, arguing that its additional transport capacity for extracted tar sands will lead to greater carbon emissions.  According to Hansen, "The total carbon in tar sands exceeds that in all oil burned in human history, and if the pipeline is built, ways will be found to extract more and more of it, burning fossil fuels during the extraction and destroying the local environment."

Hansen is one of eighteen prominent climate scientists who last year called on President Obama to reject the KeystoneXL pipeline.  Largely because of Hansen's activism, the pipeline has become a rallying cry for the climate activist community, with over 40,000 people attending the recent "Forward on Climate" rally in DC.  And even mainstream commentators are joining the movement to reject KeystoneXL, with TIME's Michael Grunwald declaring "if we’re in a war to stop global warming... then we need to fight it on the beaches, the landing zones and the carbon-spewing tar sands of Alberta."

Over 40,000 people marched during the "Forward on Climate" rally February 17.

One would think John Kerry, an ardent climate hawk, would hold some sway with the State Department's own assessment of the pipeline.  Apparently not.  The State Department's environmental impact assessment released last week claims that the environmental and climate change impacts are manageable.  In a nutshell, the document assumes that the tar sands will inevitably be extracted, and so therefore the additional climate impact of the pipeline is negligible.

At first examination, it is surprising that Kerry's outspoken concern for climate change apparently carried little weight with the environmental impact state.  But maybe that's because the State Department didn't write the report!  Instead, they outsourced the document to a consultancy group called Environmental Resources Management, who was paid by TransCanada (the company building the pipeline) to write the statement.  With the authors having strong incentives to please their client, it is no surprise the outsourced document downplays the climate impacts of the pipeline.

I truly believe Kerry and Obama want to move the United States, and the world, forward on clean energy.  I believe that they want to confront the reality of climate change and deal with the climate crisis in an intelligent and sustained manner.  But with moneyed interest like TransCanada and the larger oil industry pushing for business as usual, an apathetic media, and a largely complacent public (a Fox News poll showed that 70% of Americans support the pipeline), they have limited ability to act.  It will take great courage on their part to reject the KeystoneXL pipeline.  And it will take great courage on the part of climate activists to push Obama and Kerry to do so, while continuing the work of convincing the public to join our cause and support bold action on climate and energy.

KeystoneXL is a symbol of the broader fight for climate justice, a fight that pits young people, the world's poor, communities facing extraction, and future generations against the status quo of the fossil fuel industry. The broader American public has yet to appreciate the injustice of climate change. If we are to move the country, we will need to up the ante and engage in continued civil disobedience to demonstrate moral urgency. But even more importantly, we will need to have the hard conversations with our friends, family, and colleagues about why it is so important to act boldly on climate and transform our entire energy system.

I'll close with more words from John Kerry, these from his first major address as Secretary of State to the University of Virginia.  To me, this sounds like a call to action to push him and President Obama to make the hard choice to reject KeystoneXL and move the country forward on climate.

We need to commit ourselves to doing the smart thing and the right thing and to truly take on this challenge, because if we don’t rise to meet it, then rising temperatures and rising sea levels will surely lead to rising costs down the road... If we waste this opportunity, it may be the only thing our generation – generations – are remembered for. We need to find the courage to leave a far different legacy.

MO Love, Forward on Climate, and the Social Tipping Point for Climate Action

In February of 2009, as an excited but scared freshman, I boarded a mini-van and drove 15 straight hours from my college in St. Louis to Washington DC. I was attending my first big event for climate justice, Power Shift 2009, and I was looking forward to a conference that I thought would be a fun weekend in a new city. Instead, the conference changed my life.

Youth rally at the Capitol at Power Shift in 2009

Something happened to me in the presence of the 12,000 other passionate young people attending Power Shift in 2009. I was deeply inspired and felt connected with something much larger than myself. And as I walked through the halls of Congress to lobby my representatives, I felt completely empowered, that I was meant to be there and that I could actually change the world. This was my baptism into the world of activism, and since those four days in Washington DC I have actively campaigned for climate justice.

Power Shift 2009 also marked the genesis of the youth climate movement in Missouri. Before Power Shift, students at several campuses were already actively on climate change issues, but we had no idea that each other existed. It took us driving halfway across the country to realize that there were actually other people who cared about climate change in Missouri! It was quite a revelation, and from that initial realization a network of Missouri student climate activists slowly started to grow.

Fast-forward four years to February 17, 2013. Today is the Forward on Climate Rally, expected to be the largest political demonstration for action on climate change in US history. Tens of thousands of activists have descended on Washington DC from all over the country. And among these activists are 110 Missouri students, representing what I view as the best hope for moving my state forward on climate justice and clean energy.

Our Missouri student climate activist network has grown a lot over the last four years. When we started off in 2009, we really didn't know what we were doing.  Our first "campaign" was little more than organizing a big conference, and had very little strategy or political impact.  Now we know how to actually organize, run effective campaigns, and think strategically. We’re finally finding out what it feels like to be winning, with Mizzou and Missouri State poised to soon successfully complete their Beyond Coal campaigns. We're expanding our efforts by bringing new campuses into the mix.  And we have developed the beginning of a statewide community and culture of support, summed up by our network’s slogan: “MO Love.” 

We know the work in Missouri will be long and difficult. We are up against some powerful corporations, starting with the heavily coal-dependent utility Ameren (a utility dirty enough to make the EAC’s Filthy 15 list). We also have two of the world’s largest and dirtiest coal corporations, Peabody and Arch Coal, headquartered in St. Louis. And the Missouri legislature is gerry-mandered to favor deeply conservative, pro-fossil fuel politicians. In short, we have a very uphill battle.

Even in the face of these huge challenges, the students of Missouri are resolute in moving our state forward. They are bright and creative, studying not just environmental studies but a wide-range of subjects, including biology, sociology, journalism, political science, Spanish, English, and business. They are determined to not just win short-term victories for their campuses, but to build the long-term power needed to change what is politically possible in our state. The students of Missouri are also determined to support each other along the way, through retreats, road trips, skype sessions, group hikes, and even just hanging out.

It feels like the Missouri student climate movement is at a threshold, finally having the numbers and the coordination needed to exert substantial influence in our state. We haven’t completely mastered the art of campus campaigns, but we’re making rapid headway. We don’t quite know how to engage in broader community fights, but we’re working with the Sierra Club and other Missouri groups to figure it out. We could still be a few years off from breaking through to large scale victories. But maybe we won’t have to wait. Maybe we’re ready to move Missouri forward now.

In some ways, today’s “Forward on Climate” rally marks a similar threshold for the US climate movement. With 20,000+ expected attendees, the rally might just have the numbers needed to sway President Obama to reject the KeystoneXL pipeline and take the lead on bold climate action. Maybe it still won’t be enough. But our doubts and hesitations won’t lead to climate justice. So on we march, holding fast to our faith in grassroots democracy and the power of our collective ability to change the world for the better.

Unlike other social justice struggles, climate change has a deadline for success or utter failure. If we continue on our current path, at some point excessive carbon emissions will activate geophysical tipping points and cause the Earth’s climate system to spiral catastrophically out of control. But our human social systems also have tipping points, and society can change just as rapidly as environmental conditions. We’re now in a race to see which macro-system, humanity’s unsustainable global culture or the Earth’s biosphere, will tip first. We don’t yet know the outcome. But the students of Missouri, along with the tens of thousands of other activists gathered here in DC, are betting on the social tipping point. And we’re working as hard as we can to shift the odds to our favor.

Reverend Lennox Yearwood Jr. of the Hip Hop Caucus called the KeystoneXL pipeline decision the “Lunch-counter moment of the 21st century.” It is a bold statement, but just imagine if it turns out to be true. In forty years, we may look back and see this moment as our tipping point, when the tide finally turned on climate action and the world started to rapidly shift towards sustainable energy. Today, the students of Missouri march with the belief that this rally will change history. Tomorrow, we return home to our campuses, ready to courageous work to implement the change we so desperately need.

Climate Divestment part 1: The Four Levels of the Climate Challenge

During the past month, the climate movement in the United States has found new life. Since Hurricane Sandy forcefully inserted climate into the political conversation, numerous Op-Eds have appeared calling for federal action on climate change. In his acceptance speech on election night, President Obama clearly highlighted climate concerns, stating that "We want our children to live in an America…that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.” And 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben recently completed the 21 city “Do the Math” tour, an effort to build a nation-wide fossil fuel divestment movement. Judging from the front page coverage “Do the Math” just received from the New York Times, it seems like the US climate movement is starting to gain mainstream attention.

Largely because of the excitement generated by the “Do the Math” tour, over 150 campuses have already joined the budding fossil fuel divestment campaign. In Missouri, five campuses (Webster, WashU, Westminster, Mizzou, and Missouri State) recently committed to launching a statewide divestment movement. It’s an incredibly exciting time to be organizing in the youth climate movement. There is something big building here, a palpable sense that this divestment movement might just have the potential to transform the discourse on climate change in the United States and create the political space for ambitious national action.

However, with so much attention suddenly given to fossil fuel divestment, it’s important to take a step back and think about the big picture of what we are trying to achieve. In the grand scheme of a global climate stabilization campaign, divestment is only one tactic in the much broader strategy of international political action. Our overarching goal is to stop catastrophic climate chaos, which means stabilizing climate below 2 degrees C or warming and keeping roughly 80% of known fossil fuel reserves in the ground. I believe that placing divestment campus organizing efforts within the context of the larger climate movement and even-larger policy realm will help young people to stay focused on the bigger picture, providing the understanding and motivation needed to support long-term divestment campaigns.

With this belief in mind, I created the diagram below to show how campus divestment fits into the broader effort to stop catastrophic climate change. The four levels of the system (planet, policy, movement, and campus) each have unique dynamics and a specific objective. Each smaller objective supports the objective at the proceeding level, creating an upward cascade of impacts starting from the campus level.

From the student perspective, action occurs primarily at the campus level. Here students have the most power to create change, as we can frame fossil fuels as a moral issue by running campus campaigns to divest their university from the fossil fuel industry. If enough campuses run divestment movements and spread this moral framing, the climate movement will gain enough support to break the power of the fossil fuel industry and produce breakthrough political action. This political action would result in significant global policy reform, putting a stiff price on carbon that changes global economic incentives enough to keep 80% of known fossil fuel reserves in the ground. By keeping 80% of fossil fuel carbon in the ground, we’ll achieve our global goal of limiting warming to below 2 degrees C and ensure a sustainable planet for our civilization.

Obviously, this model is grossly oversimplified. I make no distinction between local, national, and international policy, nor do I talk about any of the other movement components besides divestment that will be necessary to overcome the power of the fossil fuel industry. But I think the general idea is valuable: campus organizing efforts occur within the context of a movement that hopes to change policy in order to ensure a sustainable planet.

It is my hope that thinking in terms of these nested systems will help students and their organizing allies to be more strategic in conducting this national divestment campaign. Over the next week, I’ll create more detailed posts on each of the four levels. Hopefully this series will give readers a concise but thorough picture of climate change in the context of the fossil fuel divestment movement.

The Beginning of Thrive WashU: An Experiment in Collaborative Social Change

Imagine a space for transformative conversations on WashU’s campus, where people feel welcomed and supported while sharing their visions for a better world. Imagine all of the student groups focused on social change gathering regularly, not just to promote their own projects, but to build something together. Imagine students, faculty, staff, administrators sitting down together as equals, sharing their deepest passions and dreams, and exploring how to move WashU from competing to be the best university in the world to a place that strives to be the best university for the world. Now, imagine that we actually have the power to turn this vision into a reality. What would this space look like? What would the conversations feel like? And how would these conversations move us from inspiring ideas to committed and sustained action?

This school year, I have the great privilege to try to answer these questions and to turn this vision into a reality. I will be facilitating an initiative called “Thrive WashU,” an experimental process to bring together the WashU community to help bring forth a thriving, just, and sustainable world. Thrive WashU will host large group conversations, create designated spaces for developing campus and neighborhood projects, and connect changemakers with the community of support they need to create a unique and substantial contribution. While I don’t yet know what will emerge from Thrive WashU, I am incredibly excited to create the possibility for WashU’s changemakers to come together in a truly meaningful way.

Thrive WashU is an initiative supported by Generation Waking Up, a national organization committed to “ignite a generation to bring forth a thriving, just, and sustainable world.”  Generation Waking Up, or GenUp for short, recently launched an initiative called “Thrive Hubs,” an organizing model that creates space for diverse changemakers to build communities and connections, to learn and grow together, and to take collaborative action. This fall, GenUp is rolling out Thrive Hubs on college campuses and in communities across the US.  I recently joined the GenUp team as its Thrive Hub Innovator and will help to refine the design for the Thrive Hub organizing model based on our experiences here at WashU.

The experiment of Thrive WashU will officially begin on September 9, when several friends and I will host the first Thrive WashU “Village Square.” The Village Square concept comes from the idea of villages having a central gathering space, where the entire community could gather and discuss important proposals for the village’s well-being. At the Thrive WashU Village Square, we will first engage all of the attendees through a WakeUp experience, an interactive workshop that frames the role young people have to play in this moment of converging global crises. We will then begin a facilitated dialogue process to explore the potential for collaborations across different perspectives. We will conclude with an action planning open space, where self-organizing groups will meet to plan their next steps in launching new initiatives. After the session ends, we plan to host a dinner to celebrate all we have accomplished.

A "Village Square" style conversation at a GenUp training. Thrive WashU will host similar conversations.

The Thrive WashU event will be open to anyone, but we will specifically target the most active changemakers on WashU’s campus. My dream is to have this event serve as the first of many spaces where students, staff, faculty, administrators, and others can gather to collectively see the possibilities for our campus community to create positive social change. While WashU already contributes greatly to the world, I believe there are many latent possibilities for a larger contribution just waiting to be activated. Thrive WashU will hopefully activate these possibilities and create novel collaborations that will add value to campus life and contribute to the betterment of the St. Louis community.

Please mark your calendars for September 9 and stay tuned for more details about the Thrive WashU Village Square. If you feel compelled to join the leadership team for the fledgling Thrive WashU effort, please contact me at adam@generationwakingup.org. I hope to see you on September 9, where through conversation we will begin to help our WashU community to embody our shared dreams.

Reflections on Rio+20: Five Lessons Learned from the Experience

My last post highlighted the bitter disappointment of the Rio+20 policy process. Disillusioned by the lack of ambition in the outcome document and disgusted by the lack of viable avenues for participation, I joined 150 other civil society members and marched out of the conference venue in protest. It was a great way to vent my frustrations, and the action emboldened us to look outside of the official UN process for ways to create systemic social change. For me, walking out represented the profound realization that given the present global political climate (and the current distribution of political power), world leaders will not take the bold actions necessary to adequately deal with our impending ecological crises.

So what will be able to create the change we need? What tools are available to us agents of social change to grow our movement, expand our influence, and change the current balance of power in order to create a sustainable world? I don’t have the answers, but I have pondered these questions a lot over the past four years. And Rio+20 helped remind me of some simple lessons, things most of us know but don't necessarily follow.

With that, here are five take-away lessons for me from Rio+20:

 

1.       Really effective groups have deep relationships and a strong sense of community.

Young people creating deep relationships and a sense of community at Rio+20 (photo credits Ellie Johnston)

Remember the famous Margaret Mead quote, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world?”  The one that seems to be plastered everywhere in motivational trainings and team-building exercises?  Well, the saying is probably so popular because it's actually is true!  But the quote doesn’t explain why that small group can make a change in the world.

In my experience, the really effective groups, the organizations that are leading the way and coming up with the most innovative and creative ideas, all have one thing in common: a strong core group of people deeply committed to one another.  This core group shares two things: a common vision and a deep sense of community.  Usually, this group is also in the same location, since actually being with one another helps to sustain the strong sense of community.

Take 350.org: the whole movement was started by a bunch of kids from Middleberry fresh out of college.  Bill McKibben gets most of the credit for starting the website, but all he really did was steer the community of climate activists in a new direction.  I believe that the group’s commitment to each other allowed them to succeed and grow something lasting.  In contrast, I don’t know of any strong community that existed at the core of Al Gore’s Repower initiative.

I’ll be writing a lot more about the idea of deep relationships and community over the next couple of weeks, since I think this an absolutely essential (but often neglected) part of the social change process.

2.       There are a LOT of young people in the world who care about this stuff.

A small portion of the young people at the Rio+20 Youth Blast (photo credit Kyle Gracey)

Many times, I have felt alone in the fight for climate justice.  Particularly at college, I have often felt like a complete outsider.  Activism and ecological radicalism are pretty rare at WashU, and idealism is also in short supply.  But WashU is not that different from most other college campuses: young people everywhere appear to be pretty apathetic.  With the exception of College of the Atlantic, I have not found any school out there where activism and deep civic engagement is the norm.

But just because you can’t always see activism thriving, it still exists!  And there are a lot of people from our generation who care.  At Rio+20, there were at least 5,000 youth registered for the conference, with many more participating in various side events.  The last American Power Shift hosted over 10,000 people from all over the country.  And those two events are only for politically-focused climate activism.  When you expand your thinking to include all of the local activists and social entrepreneurs, the number of youth change makers grows tremendously.

My point isn’t that activists make up a majority of young people.  We’re still in the vast minority.  But it’s good to remind ourselves that we are a movement, and are by no means alone.

3.      Without explicit goals, deadlines, and accountability mechanisms, it’s really difficult to get stuff done. But personal will power can help.

 

Young people working hard on projects while at Rio+20 (photo credits Kyle Gracey)

Think back to your last essay assignment (if you are a working adult, you can substitute a task from a project).  If your essay assignments were similar to those of my college experience, chances are this assignment was probably pretty specific.  My assignments had a clear prompt and a clear due date, with the professor available to clarify any questions.  My school assignments also contain a clear accountability mechanism in the form of a grade.  These three things (an explicit goal, deadline, and accountability mechanism) allowed me to complete the assignment, even when I was really distracted or engaged with other things.

Now, think of a personal project, something that you care about but haven’t been able to achieve.  Perhaps it’s keeping a regular blog (that’s me!).  Perhaps it is learning to cook.  Maybe it is learning an instrument.  We all have dreams we want to pursue, but never seem to accomplish.  My hunch is that we probably don’t accomplish these things because we don’t create explicit goals, deadlines, and accountability mechanisms.

I originally intended to blog every day while in Rio.  Looking back at my blog, I see I was able to keep it up for all of two days.  My internal goal was never quite explicitly stated though, so when things got really busy, it was easy to neglect blogging.  And with no accountability mechanism (and lots of engaging things happening around me), I didn’t stand a chance to keep my personal commitment.

Setting and accomplishing my own goals is vastly more difficult than accomplishing someone else’s objectives.  Clearly defining (and sticking to) a goal is really hard for me, since I easily get distracted and lose interest.  Deadlines are easy to set, but I am almost always too ambitious and forget about my other responsibilities.  And accountability, when it’s only about you?  That takes will power and persistence, a skill that many of us (myself definitely included) lack.  But will power is a skill that can be learned, something that I intend to practice a lot more now that I am out of college.

4.       Nature really IS revitalizing.

SustainUS members hiking through the woods on Ilha Grande (photo credits Lauren Borsa)

Before getting involved with climate activism, I didn’t get out of suburbia that much.  I sometimes went for runs in my local forest preserve, and occasionally my family would go hiking in a state park.  But I never felt it was that important, and certainly never saw “nature” as a source of inspiration and renewal.

In college, I got to experience many different natural habitats.  My college Pathfinder focus program traveled to the Missouri Ozarks, the Mojave Desert, and Hawaii.  I got to see lots of Missouri forests while interning at an ecological field station.  Through the Sierra Student coalition, I got to camp in the old growth forests of the Pacific Northwest.  After each of these experiences, I returned to St. Louis feeling renewed and a little more centered than when I left.

After the Rio+20 conference concluded, I traveled to Ilha Grande (“big island” in Portuguese) with some friends from SustainUS.  The island has of a series of small fishing villages (with hostels and small pousadas), pristine beaches, and hikes through the beautiful forest.  It was a very different scene from both Rio the city (with it’s crazy nightlife and constant carnival atmosphere) and the Rio+20 conference (which was incredibly stressful and pretty disempowering).  Almost immediately after arriving in Ilha Grande, I felt more at ease and more centered.  That feeling of peace stayed with me throughout my time there, and continued even after flying back to my hometown in suburban Chicago.

My main point make an effort to get out of the city once in a while.  It will help to reinvigorate you and help put things back in perspective.

5.       Celebration is essential for this work.

 

SustainUS partying in Rio de Janeiro (photo credits Lauren Borsa)

While in Rio for three weeks, I went out more times than during the entire spring semester.  Maybe that was because the conference was Rio, the city famous for dancing and beaches.  Maybe it was because we were all stressed and exhausted from futilely trying to affect policy change, and we needed a break.  Maybe it was just because we really enjoyed each other’s company.  The surprising thing is that celebration didn’t wear us down or hurt our SustainUS advocacy work.  It actually made us more effective.

Going out dancing and drinking beers on the beach was one of the main reasons I felt so connected to everyone on the SustainUS team.  Seeing people let their guard down and let go of the activist policy wonk persona was a really grounding experience.  It was hilarious to see SustainUS members transform and display their party quirks (Hudson's "hefty booty dance" interpretation was particularly amusing).  Partying together reminded us that we’re all just people, we're don't have to expect perfection, and since we’re making most of this up as we go, we should enjoy the ride.

On a more philosophical note, I feel that activists (especially those involved in climate change work) often forget to celebrate the very thing we are trying to save.  We’re involved in this fight because we care about people, and we want to make sure that future generations can enjoy a thriving, just, and sustainable future.  But we (or at least me) rarely take the time to be here, fully in the present moment, and enjoy the beauty of the world that surrounds us.  There is incredible joy to be found in the simplest things: playing card games with friends, going for a walk in the woods, or dancing the night away drunkenly on a beach.  If we took more time to experience the present and celebrate life with others, maybe our worries about the future wouldn’t feel quite so heavy.

I hope you find these five lessons helpful.  They are things I already knew (I think most of us already do know these things), but they are easy to forget.  Rio+20 was a great reminder of these lessons, which I hope to keep follow during my future work in St. Louis and beyond.

Reflections on Rio+20: Bitter Disappointment in the Whole Process

I intended to blog about Rio+20 daily during June 20-22, the “official” days for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, the UN. Instead, I was swept up in the emotional roller coaster of the final days, joining in Civil Society actions protesting the weak outcome document claiming to represent the “Future We Want.” I needed a week for the overwhelming feelings of excitement, heartbreak, hope, and disgust to settle before coming back to reflect on what actually happened at the conference. This post is the first of a series evaluating Rio+20, both in terms of the policy it produced and the transformative experience it was for me.

There is no consensus on the outcome of Rio+20.  Some (mostly governments) say it was a resounding success in multilateral diplomacy, proof that UN negotiations need not engage in brinkmanship in the very last hours of a conference.  Speaking on behalf of the entire UN system, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon declared that "Rio+20 has affirmed fundamental principles – renewed essential commitments – and given us new direction." Others observers (mostly NGOs) claim that Rio+20 was an incredible failure, a wasted opportunity where millions of dollars led to a greenwashed, corporate approved, business-as-usual document that takes us closer to environmental and social ruin.  Among the critics, Vandana Shiva described Rio+20 as “the death of democracy” and Bill McKibben joined in the twitter trend of #Riofail.

For the most part, I share McKibben’s perspective that Rio+20 was a huge disappointment.  I was expecting a very weak policy outcome document to emerge from the conference, but I did not expect to also be so disappointed in the policy process.  The UN prides itself on being inclusive and transparent in all of its proceedings and supposedly designated special pathways for civil society participation in Rio+20.  Brazilian President and conference host Dilma Rousseff was particularly emphatic about this point, declaring that Rio+20 was the most inclusive and participatory conference in history and a "global expression of democracy."  Yet on the final days of the negotiations, civil society groups were shut out of the official conversations.  Policy points my friends had spent years lobbying for were curtly removed, calls for greater participation were ignored, and after some secret closed-door meetings, Brazilian facilitators produced the “final text” with no possibility for alteration. 

The outcome document satisfied the minimum requirements for all of the national governments in attendance, but it was a far cry from the ambitious response we need to deal with the world’s mounting social, economic, and environmental crises.  And with the outcome document completed a day before the arrival of heads of state, the official three days of Rio+20 turned to be little more than leaders posturing in an endless stream of speeches.  To add even further insult to injury, on the last day of the conference civil society groups were barred from making any final statements.  Originally, the UN had promised each of the civil society participatory groups the chance to give a 2-minute final symbolic statement.  But even this symbolic participatory measure was taken away.

With nothing productive left to do in the conference and every avenue for participation blocked, I decided to join a youth-led protest of the entire negotiation process.  We highlighted the corporate influence on the Rio+20 process, held a “people’s plenary” to decide what next steps to take, and ultimately decided the strongest action would be to simply walk out of the conference venue.  To see the full story, check out the video below:

While walking out of RioCentro, I experienced powerful feelings of solidarity and moral resistance.  It was in many ways a culminating protest for my past four years of climate activism, a declaration that current global policy is leading us towards catastrophic tipping points.  I believe that real sustainability requires nothing less than a complete transformation of society.  We need new economic models that provide for everyone’s basic needs while respecting planetary boundaries.  We need to change our underlying societal motivation from greed to empathy.  We need to realize that cooperation is often more efficient than competition.  And we need to do this on a very short timescale, because climate change and widespread environmental degradation suggests we are rapidly approaching the limits of what the planet can sustainably bare.

There are limitations to protest though, limitations that deeply troubled me after walking out of RioCentro.  While protests can help spur policy change, they are much more effective at blocking destructive proposals than creating alternatives.  And even policy has its limitations.  Full sustainability cannot be mandated through legislation, nor can complete social and cultural change be imposed through a UN declaration or national law.  Policy and protest are incredibly powerful tools, and they can move society forward in large bounds when used effectively.  But to make something new, to create a better world rather than just preventing a worse one, requires something more.

Thankfully, Rio+20 was more than just a disappointing policy process.  With more than 50,000 people participating in more than 3,000 side events, many real solutions to our pressing sustainability challenges did emerge from Rio.  In future posts, I’ll highlight some of these solutions and the potential collaborations in the post-Rio+20 world.

Youth Fiesta: Collaborating beyond Rio+20, creating the future we want

Yesterday, we had a great "Youth Fiesta" event in the RioCentro courtyard.  Nearly 60 youth attended, and everyone had a blast.  We spent the first hour "speed dating," where we met new people and got to know them over the span of three minutes.  During the second hour, we divided into groups based on our specific interest areas, where we formulated plans on how we will collaborate and support one another beyond Rio+20.  And we even had a special guest appear at the end: Captain Planet!  Check out the pictures below for a taste of the event:

    

Originally, we were not planning to host another collaboration fiesta event.  But given the popularity with event attendees and the interest from yesterday's MGCY Meeting, we decided to host another round of  a collaboration event.  Details are the same as yesterday: simply come to the RioCentro Courtyard at 2 in order to join.  The full text of the original event announcement is also below.

Thanks, and let us know if you have any questions.  Hope to see you today at 2!

-SustainUS, MyCity+20, and Peace Child International

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Collaborating Beyond Rio+20: 
Creating the Future We Want

When: Thursday, June 21st, 2:00-4:00PM

Where: RioCentro Courtyard, by the Statue

Who: Youth (and the Young at Heart) from Around the World

What: Come Meet and Collaborate about Working Beyond Rio+20

This event will feature an informal "speed-dating" session for the first hour of the gathering, where individuals will quickly meet members from other youth delegations. Using the "open space" methodology, participants will then have the opportunity to break-out into small groups. By providing a platform to identify shared interests, this event will enable participants to continuing collaborating beyond Rio+20 with a global group of like-minded individuals.

This is not meant to be another side-event, but simply a comfortable space to facilitate genuine conversations and foster collaboration.  We realize that a lot of other things will be happening today, but we want to intentionally create a space where youth can plan for beyond Rio+20 before the conference concludes.   

Please come prepared to share your thoughts on the following question: "What category of projects are you most excited about working on after Rio+20?"  We will be dividing up into working groups based on these categories, so try to pick something that could connect you to others.