I spent this weekend at the Conference of Youth, which took place at the Universidad del Caribe, at the end of the road on Avenida Bonampak, a little outside of downtown Cancún. On the way there, you think you are going to fall off the coral reef and mangroves that are underneath the asphalt, pavement and cement buildings - or were. It looks like the end of the world.
After 2.5 h in the minivan, we got to Cancunmesse (actually it's kind of a clusterf*ck) this morning and then had to take another shuttle bus back to the Moon Palace. Policia everywhere. Most of the delegations from LDCs, poorer countries, also the NGOs, we all can't afford the $350 a night at places like Moon Palace - especially for two whole weeks. So we are staying in places downtown, doubling up in rooms, and so forth. And it took two hours to get from there to the official negotiation spaces and most of the people on the bus, getting into the Moon Palace at 1030 am this morning, were all people from African countries. Meena Raman and Martin Khor from Third World Network were also in the bus.
Youth for Climate Justice is rolling to the COP with the Indigenous Environmental network and Grassroots Global Justice Alliance.
Members on the ground in Cancún and throughout the United States include:
In Navajo country, Black Mesa Water Coalition, a Navajo/Diné and Hopi youth organization, shut down one of the largest open face put mines in the country and is also the first reservation in Indian Country to pass green jobs legislation. Nikke Alexis our person on that. The closing of the Peabody coal mine was a major win, the result of an intense campaign that took over a decade.
Kandi Mossett from Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara in Fort Berthold North Dakota always has a new death in her community every time I see her. I see Kandi every 2 or 3 months. That is the cost of fossil fuel production, extraction for Native communities and the communities who live next to refineries, pipelines, power plants. Her reservation is less than a thousand people. This is genocide. The first time it was a trucking accident, another time it was cancer, and so forth and so forth. Kandi is a cancer survivor and a sister I am proud to support.
Lilian Molina comes from the Little Village in Chicago which is next to one of the largest coal fired power plants in North America. The cost to the mostly Latino (Mexicano, central american and puerto rican) comunity there is in asthma and cancers. Lili will be in Cancún advocating on behalf of and for the Little Village in the women and climate change or the Youth spheres, and her compatriot in the United States, Raquel Nuñez, and hosting a powerful action in Chicago on December 7.
Joaquin Sanchez, Jr. has been working on issues of youth in environmental justice as well as the intersection of the queer rights, immigrant rights and economic justice sectors since I have met him. This dynamic and thoughtful young queer is most recently emerged from the statewide organizing against Proposition 23 in California, and will be working on the inside to promote positions that keep our communities safe, especially the communities that have been experiencing the impacts of the industries that caused climate change. He will be keeping a blog that examines the negotiations in relationship to a queer analytical perspective. http://pachajota.wordpress.com
Kari Fulton and Ellen Choy are the co-founders of checktheweather.net and will be working within the Youth (YOUNGO) space. Kari has extensive connections with the African Youth delegations and other youth delegations to be watching include the small island nations. In the past, she has worked on covering the African and African descendent peoples and perspectives in the negotiations at COP15 in Copenhagen. Likewise, Ellen and I will be building across the board, but also trying to suss out the Asian contingencies that are aligned with this worldview as well as handling quite a bit of media and communications roles to support the various delegations, as well as developing our own media. We were both on the ground in Copenhagen and again in Cochabamba.
Julien Terrell is the Organizing Director for Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice in the Bronx, New York. YMPJ's programs in the Bronx include green roofs, community gardening and water recreation. I met him in Cochabamba and was immediately impressed by the depth of his knowledge and practice to environmental justice and youth organizing, to his community and family, and to the movements in which we move. YMPJ is one of the key coordinators of actions in New York City for Dec 7 Day of Action.
As I am closing, Bolivia - Pablo Solon - just gave an opening statement saying that Mexico must not be a repeat of Copenhagen, that the final document gets introduced until 3 am in the morning, and similar dynamics.
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