The ‘accord’ that emerged from Copenhagen is woefully inadequate, but GetUp members can take pride in many amazing achievements, including giving a voice to 5 young Pacific delegates who were heard by world leaders and the international media.

As we rededicate ourselves to securing strong action on climate change in the New Year, your reflections can help enlighten and inspire all of us. We have an election next year in Australia, and that means every bit of pressure we create is felt keenly by our politicians. So, tell us in your comments below, what’s your vision for GetUp and the climate movement in 2010?

GetUp felt that we should do our best to mark the occasion with a special ceremony here in Australia. Sick of copping criticisms for playing the bully in Copenhagen, Kevin Rudd rushed back home to accept the award from the international climate change movement.

A small crowd gathered to hear Mr Rudd accept the award, including many real fossils, at the Australian Museum. Mr Rudd feigned shock and surprise as his country’s name was read out from the Fossil-shaped card.

GetUp, however, are surprised it has taken climate groups so long to discover that Australia is pushing the diplomatic envelope at COP15. If the countries whose leaders he has been talking to, such as Tuvalu, were to accept his emissions reduction targets, their nations all-but disappear from the map. And this from the highest per capita polluter in the world!

With just one day left to produce a Fair, Ambitious and Binding agreement at Copenhagen, GetUp members have been making calls to the real Mr. Rudd, and Minister for Climate Change Penny Wong, to convince them to lead us into a safe climate future. Lets make this our last fossil!

And their words echoed from an address in the plenary session to interviews with press from around the world. Their stories have helped wake this conference up to the scale of the global challenge we all face together.

We’ve put together this video so you can hear directly from the delegates themselves on why being at COP15 is so important to them, and the countries they represent. Click below to hear directly from Christina, Carlos, Paul, Luana and Rikana.

Reports are coming in that Kevin Rudd has been bullying our Pacific neighbours at the conference – many countries that these young delegates come from. Click here to call Stand up to Rudd the bully.

Tell our leaders to put forward their most ambitious targets and real financial support for developing countries by sending your urgent fax straight to Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong in Denmark. Click the link below:

http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/Copenhagen&id=896

Australia has a unique position for leadership at the conference, as the permanent chair of the Umbrella Group of developed countries. But so far it has held back on climate action by refusing to put its upper target of 25% on the negotiating table–a target which, if all countries adopted it, would be too low to reach Australia’s commitment to limit global warming to 2 degrees.

Australia has a special obligation to make ambitious cuts, being not only a developed country but the heaviest per capita polluter in the world. Movement at this crisis point could make an enormous impact.

Australia has also failed to commit to significant long-term aid for developing countries. Meanwhile, the proposed short-term funding will come out of existing aid budgets. Unless Australia and other rich countries give developing nations a fair deal, we won’t reach an agreement at Copenhagen.

Send your message direct to Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong in Copenhagen: now is the time to lead.

If Kevin Rudd is to come home with a treaty–one that is fair, ambitious and binding, the only kind all countries can agree to–then Australia needs to be a leader in these negotiations, not a spoiler. Make sure that Kevin Rudd sees your support for climate leadership when he arrives in Copenhagen in 36 hours and meets with NGOs by clicking here to sign our petition:

http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/SaveKyotoSaveADeal

Talks aren’t going well at the moment: poor countries are threatening to walk out again if rich countries like Australia don’t stop trying weasel out of their obligations by dumping the Kyoto protocol. Reports have emerged that Kevin Rudd has called Pacific leaders to brow-beat them in the hope they’ll fall in line behind the push to drop Kyoto.

To help break the deadlock at these talks we need our leaders to show real leadership to ensure that all countries do their fair share. Click here to sign our petition:

http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/SaveKyotoSaveADeal

It was a FABulous day, which meant GetUp members in Orange and dressed FABulous. Check out this slide show of photos, to get the pulse of the day:

Of course, FAB also meant sending a message to our leaders to bring home a treaty that is Fair, Ambitious and Binding. Fair means helping developing countries adapt to the affects of climate change and to develop their economies sustainably. Ambitious means cutting global emissions to achieve a maximum of 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Binding means a legally binding treaty on all parties.

Melbourne achieved a massive 40,000 person turnout and it was a picture perfect day for 15,000 walkers in Sydney. In Perth, participants were walking in the Warming, with 37 degree temperatures (but we’re told it was a dry heat). In Brisbane, rain dampened the crowd, but not their spirit. In Darwin, several hundred dedicated Top Enders braved cyclone conditions to walk the harbour foreshore–they know that the storms will be more fierce and frequent if we don’t get action on climate change. That’s not to mention thousands more in Adelaide, Canberra, Hobart, Launceston and other towns and cities around the country.

So, neither rain, wind nor heat of day prevented Australians from taking to the streets to voice their demand for a Fair, Ambitious and Binding treaty from Copenhagen. But participants didn’t just walk the walk, they talked the talk. As the Copenhagen Conference struggles to reach a global agreement, Walk participants sent a message to Penny Wong and the Australian negotiators to do their part to bring home a treaty.

Christina Ora, GetUp Pacific Delegate with Penny Wong at the Australian Ambassador’s reception last night.

As climate talks drag on, low-lying atolls are already being flooded.

By Christina Ora, 11th December 2009

I am 17 years old. For my entire life, countries have been negotiating a climate agreement. My future is in front of me. In the year that I was born, amid an atmosphere of hope, the world formed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to solve the climate crisis.

This week I told negotiators at the main plenary session of the UN Climate Change Conference that time is running out and my generation needs them to work together to come up with the agreement that we deserve.

In the Solomon Islands, my homeland, communities on low-lying atolls are already being displaced by rising sea levels. Communities have lived on these atolls for generations. Moving from one province to another in the Solomon Islands is not just like moving house. Your land is your identity. It is part of your culture. It is who you are.

I am scared, and so too are the people from these atolls about what this means for our culture, our communities and our identity.

Because of climate change, I am uncertain about what is to come. How can I feel that my future is safe? How can I be sure that my home village won’t disappear in 10 years’ time? How can I be sure that my community won’t have to find a new home? How can I be sure that I will be able to raise my children in the same place that my mother and father raised me? I am not sure. I am scared and worried.

At the global negotiations, many nations, including Australia, have focused on avoiding 2 degrees of global warming. While this may not sound like much, it will threaten the survival of many small island nations.

Sea-level rise and unprecedented storm surges caused by climate change are already affecting communities across the Pacific and are expected to get significantly worse if climate change is not immediately and adequately tackled.

Consequently, small island governments, like my own, are asking the global community to prevent global warming above 1.5 degrees. This means a global emission stabilisation target of below 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent in the atmosphere.

Throughout my life, flags have been raised at the United Nations as the global community has recognised new nations. The global community cannot allow flags to be taken down as nations and cultures vanish beneath the ocean.

I came to the climate change conference because, as a young person, I believe that there must be urgent action to protect my future. I am here with Project Survival Pacific, an initiative of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, and working with a team of young Australians and 10 other youth from diverse Pacific island countries to raise the concerns of people from vulnerable island nations.

I am also working with my Government to support it in negotiations for a strong agreement for my people.

Since arriving in Copenhagen, I have been working with young people from all over the world and this has given me hope that together we can build a better future.

Developed countries at this conference must commit to a legally binding agreement that will ensure the world’s most vulnerable nations are protected from climate change.

Solomon Islands, as a small island nation, is one of the smallest emitters of greenhouse gas in the world, and yet we are being hit the hardest and the fastest by climate change. I ask Australia, as our closest developed neighbour, to please help us: assist us financially in adapting to climate change and commit to strong mitigation targets to ensure the lowest temperature rise.

This conference has the power to transform the way the world responds to climate change, but only if all countries realise the true urgency of the problem and commit to an ambitious, fair and legally binding agreement now.

For my entire life, world leaders have been negotiating a climate agreement. They cannot tell me they need more time. There is no more time. I hope world leaders realise this week that my generation’s future is in the palm of their hands.

Christina Ora is a youth delegate at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference.

See you on Saturday,
The GetUp team

Australia plays a significant role in the climate negotiations in Copenhagen, but the deal that our negotiators push for could be compromised by Tony Abbott’s irresponsible climate scare campaign back home. To learn more, check out our latest video straight from the Copenhagen climate conference.

Take action now in our talk back radio campaign and neutralise the myths that Abbott is spreading in the Australian media.

Click here for a transcript of the video (pdf)

Want to know more about the policies they’re discussing ?

Check out our Day1 update and the update from Day2.

Click here for a transcript of the video (pdf).

Just hours ago printers started running wild in Copenhagen with the leaking of tightly held negotiating text that rich countries have been writing. In summary: it’s a bad news for the climate – but it is far from locked in. There is no mention of the 25-40% reductions that scientists say are required, and nothing is legally binding.

For some time now a small group of rich nations, known as the ‘commitment circle’ have been meeting in secret to develop their version of what the Copenhagen Agreement should look like. The text is designed to be a basis for the high level negotiations that begin next week, and is seen by developing nations as an attempt by rich nations to bully them into signing a weak deal that calls for sacrifices from the poor while locking in higher emission rights for countries that contributed  most to creating the problem of climate change.

One of the key principles behind the Kyoto protocol is that of ‘common but differentiated responsibility’. That is, the principle that those who created the problem (rich nations) should be the ones to fix it. The draft negotiating text departs from this principle, instead decreeing that rich countries should be able to emit more per person in 2050 then poor nations (by almost double).

As I’ve previously written (see my post below), targets, finance to support developing countries reach these targets (and adapt to the realities of climate change) and a legally binding agreement that locks in action would make for a successful outcome.

On targets and mitigation, the draft text includes:

• a recognition of the need to keep temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels (important, and positive)
• a 2020 peak year for global emissions, which scientists say will be too late for the climate
• a 50% by 2050 global emissions reduction targets (woefully inadequate)

All of this takes place with the context that even a stronger approach would still leave the world with substantial climatic damage locked in, and even odds that warming will exceed 2 degrees, leading to even more extensive destruction of natural systems across the globe.

On finance, as I’ve previously written, we know the world must commit to both short term ‘start-up’ finance, as well as long term, predictable, year by year finance (see blog post below for more information on this).

The draft text only discusses short-term ‘start up’ finance and doesn’t make commitments to long term finance at the levels we know we need. What’s incredibly worrying though is the text’s suggestion that finance for developing countries should be managed by the world bank and tied to developing country actions (similar to the often criticized strict conditions put forward by the International Monetary Fund).

And finally on the legal form of the agreement, the negotiating text throws out the Kyoto protocol and at only 13 pages in length offers no guide on how developed countries would be held to account for their emissions reductions. Instead, it reads more like one of the many UN multilateral agreements that the world has signed where nations leave promising to act but never actually do anything serious.

Now while it is clear the draft negotiating text is woefully inadequate, this early in the process Copenhagen is rescuable – but only if countries like Australia walk away from the ‘commitment circle’ text. Penny Wong needs to swiftly rebuke the draft negotiating text and quickly move on to pushing for a much for substantive agreement.

There’s still hope that we’ll walk away solving dangerous climate change – but only with a massive shift in ambition from world leaders like Kevin Rudd. Particularly because this is the text of just a few rich nations in the ‘commitment circle’.

** Update: The UNFCCC have just put out a media release. It reads: “This was an informal paper ahead of the conference given to a number of people for the purposes of  consultations.  The only formal texts in the UN process are the ones tabled by the Chairs of this Copenhagen conference at the behest of the Parties.”

The theme for GetUp’s next two weeks is a saying we’ve actually been using around the office for the last few years – just make it FABulous!

Now that I’m on the ground I wanted to share some thoughts on what a FABulous deal might look like.

With 192 countries participating, the burden of the expectations of the world’s people rests upon quite a few shoulders. But perhaps none more then those of the leaders of key nations like India, the US, China – and our Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

I heard a great anecdote a few hours ago. At the negotiations preceding Copenhagen (in Barcelona a few weeks ago) an Indian negotiator approached an Australian climate activist and they got talking about our very own Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. The negotiator commented on how lucky Australia is to have such an intellectually rigorous mind leading our nation. He commented on how committed to climate action Mr Rudd is.

Despite what we think about the Government’s domestic and international efforts so far, one thing is for certain. Our Prime Minister has set himself up to make a global impact – for good or for bad, and that makes influencing his decision so crucial.

So what are we after?

Targets, finance to support developing countries reach these targets (and adapt to the realities of climate change) and a legally binding agreement that locks in action.

On targets a FABulous agreement is first and foremost one that keeps warming below 2 degrees, which means a commitment to stablising global carbon emissions at 350 parts per million. This must be achieved with industrialized countries like Australia agreeing to ambitious 40% + targets. ‘Mitigation targets’ as their called must also drive a global emissions peak within the first 5 years of the deal coming in to force. Importantly, these targets must not be ‘fudged’. The ability of countries like Australia to simply buy the emission reductions of other nations must be limited and the accounting mechanisms for measuring things like land clearing must be fair and not allow loopholes for ‘hiding’ emissions.

On finance the world must commit to both short term ‘start-up’ finance, as well as long term, predictable, year by year finance to help developing countries deal with the impacts climate change is already having, as well as reduce their emissions through clean development. Long term finance commitments from countries around the world need to add up to:

• US$95 billion per year by 2020 for low emissions development, the halting of deforestation and things like technology development; and
• US$100 billion per year by 2020 in grants to developing countries that includes a global climate insurance pool.

This climate emergency fund must be in addition to existing levels of overseas development aid and is the single greatest ingredient in seeking a global deal. Without it, developing nations simply won’t sign up.

And finally on the legal form of the agreement, the Kyoto protocol (specifically the rules and procedures that sit under the Kyoto agreement) mustn’t simply be thrown out the door without an agreement for an even stronger set of rules on compliance and financial commitments.

And is this possible?

48 hours before the end of the Kyoto COP in 1995, an agreement looked all but impossible. And Kyoto now stands as one of the finest achievements of the UN. The last two weeks have seen incredible momentum building in to Copenhagen. China, India and the US are all now firmly engaged in negotiations with targets on the table for the first time.

What’s more, this will be the first COP with a leaders summit and the importance of this should not be underestimated. When leaders come together the political realities of a worldwide 24 hour news market means they absolutely must walk away with a deal to sell to their domestic constituents.

But there is a risk. The extraordinary demand for a global solution means countries are seriously considering ‘green-washing’ their way out.

So how can we know whether our leaders are trying to green-wash us?

Here’s your guide.

Firstly any global deal that only includes start up finance and doesn’t commit long term, sustainable finance at the level of US$195 billion, will be greenwash.

Secondly, a deal that includes dodgy rules for land use land clearing and forestry that allow countries like Australia to escape transitioning to a clean energy economy will mean they’re trying to greenwash us.

And finally, a deal without any compliance mechanism (that is punitive measures and incentives) will be an empty deal. We can’t simply come this far and walk away with a multi lateral agreement with all nations agreeing to do something but not holding each other to account.

Over the coming fortnight we’ll be bringing you really strategic ways of getting involved. Key will be our ability to take actions that:

• show Penny Wong, our Minister for Climate Change that Australians understand how important long term finance for developing countries is;
• show the Government that we won’t accept them pushing in loopholes similar to what happened in Kyoto; and
• that we won’t accept a global deal that doesn’t include compliance mechanisms.

I’d love to read your comments on what’s useful and I’m happy to answer any questions.

Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.

Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year’s inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world’s response has been feeble and half-hearted.

Climate change has been caused over centuries, has consequences that will endure for all time and our prospects of taming it will be determined in the next 14 days. We call on the representatives of the 192 countries gathered in Copenhagen not to hesitate, not to fall into dispute, not to blame each other but to seize opportunity from the greatest modern failure of politics. This should not be a fight between the rich world and the poor world, or between east and west. Climate change affects everyone, and must be solved by everyone.

The science is complex but the facts are clear. The world needs to take steps to limit temperature rises to 2C, an aim that will require global emissions to peak and begin falling within the next 5-10 years. A bigger rise of 3-4C — the smallest increase we can prudently expect to follow inaction — would parch continents, turning farmland into desert. Half of all species could become extinct, untold millions of people would be displaced, whole nations drowned by the sea. The controversy over emails by British researchers that suggest they tried to suppress inconvenient data has muddied the waters but failed to dent the mass of evidence on which these predictions are based.

Few believe that Copenhagen can any longer produce a fully polished treaty; real progress towards one could only begin with the arrival of President Obama in the White House and the reversal of years of US obstructionism. Even now the world finds itself at the mercy of American domestic politics, for the president cannot fully commit to the action required until the US Congress has done so.

But the politicians in Copenhagen can and must agree the essential elements of a fair and effective deal and, crucially, a firm timetable for turning it into a treaty. Next June’s UN climate meeting in Bonn should be their deadline. As one negotiator put it: “We can go into extra time but we can’t afford a replay.”

At the deal’s heart must be a settlement between the rich world and the developing world covering how the burden of fighting climate change will be divided — and how we will share a newly precious resource: the trillion or so tonnes of carbon that we can emit before the mercury rises to dangerous levels.

Rich nations like to point to the arithmetic truth that there can be no solution until developing giants such as China take more radical steps than they have so far. But the rich world is responsible for most of the accumulated carbon in the atmosphere – three-quarters of all carbon dioxide emitted since 1850. It must now take a lead, and every developed country must commit to deep cuts which will reduce their emissions within a decade to very substantially less than their 1990 level.

Developing countries can point out they did not cause the bulk of the problem, and also that the poorest regions of the world will be hardest hit. But they will increasingly contribute to warming, and must thus pledge meaningful and quantifiable action of their own. Though both fell short of what some had hoped for, the recent commitments to emissions targets by the world’s biggest polluters, the United States and China, were important steps in the right direction.

Social justice demands that the industrialised world digs deep into its pockets and pledges cash to help poorer countries adapt to climate change, and clean technologies to enable them to grow economically without growing their emissions. The architecture of a future treaty must also be pinned down – with rigorous multilateral monitoring, fair rewards for protecting forests, and the credible assessment of “exported emissions” so that the burden can eventually be more equitably shared between those who produce polluting products and those who consume them. And fairness requires that the burden placed on individual developed countries should take into account their ability to bear it; for instance newer EU members, often much poorer than “old Europe”, must not suffer more than their richer partners.

The transformation will be costly, but many times less than the bill for bailing out global finance — and far less costly than the consequences of doing nothing.

Many of us, particularly in the developed world, will have to change our lifestyles. The era of flights that cost less than the taxi ride to the airport is drawing to a close. We will have to shop, eat and travel more intelligently. We will have to pay more for our energy, and use less of it.

But the shift to a low-carbon society holds out the prospect of more opportunity than sacrifice. Already some countries have recognized that embracing the transformation can bring growth, jobs and better quality lives. The flow of capital tells its own story: last year for the first time more was invested in renewable forms of energy than producing electricity from fossil fuels.

Kicking our carbon habit within a few short decades will require a feat of engineering and innovation to match anything in our history. But whereas putting a man on the moon or splitting the atom were born of conflict and competition, the coming carbon race must be driven by a collaborative effort to achieve collective salvation.

Overcoming climate change will take a triumph of optimism over pessimism, of vision over short-sightedness, of what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature”.

It is in that spirit that 56 newspapers from around the world have united behind this editorial. If we, with such different national and political perspectives, can agree on what must be done then surely our leaders can too.

The politicians in Copenhagen have the power to shape history’s judgment on this generation: one that saw a challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that we saw calamity coming but did nothing to avert it. We implore them to make the right choice.

This editorial will be published tomorrow by 56 newspapers around the world in 20 languages including Chinese, Arabic and Russian. The text was drafted by a Guardian (UK) team during more than a month of consultations with editors from more than 20 of the papers involved. Most of the newspapers have taken the unusual step of featuring the editorial on their front page.

This editorial is free to reproduce under Creative Commons

I got on the 350 bus (coincidence?) and thanks to efficient Danish public transport, arrived at one of the most anticipated events of the year, COP15. 20,000 people were expected to attend, and by the looks of it, most of them showed up. People were everywhere, in suits, sloganed t-shirts and in my case, a belt that the security check didn’t approve of. Good start.

What an amazing gathering, 190 countries represented, watching rousing speeches (sitting on the floor) from the Prime Minister of Denmark, the Head of the IPCC and other key figures who have all in some way contributed to the struggle for climate justice.
But that’s not what was interesting about this day. It was really the people that danced for climate action, meeting someone from an island that was directly threatened by climate change, the attempts to charm my way into the Australian delegations office and of course, the hilarious hierarchical snobbiness regarding the colour of ones accreditation lanyard.

What a busy day – I am charged with trying to spread the word that 350ppm is the most sensible climate target and really bring that home to Australia. I get the feeling that when you tell people that you are from Australia they look at you and see a dirty big piece of coal. Thanks for being embarrassing, country.
But to be honest, how can you blame them? Our PM is dedicated to passing a woefully inadequate CPRS and the Opposition just elected a man that found it perfectly reasonable to look into a camera and deny that climate change is real! Climate change denial is SO last century. When you sit and listen to the head of the IPCC (the inspiring Rajendra Pachauri) list all the startling evidence that brought everyone here to COP15 in a miserable Copenhagen winter, there is just no credibility to Australia’s position. It just goes to prove how far behind Australia is politically on this issue. Saddening.

As for the rest of the conference, as I was promptly lost in the Bella Centre guess who walked past me but the stunning, ex- Danish Climate Change Minister, Connie Hedegaard. She´s quite awesome (she rides her bike to work everyday) and I’ll admit I was a little star struck!

I have been meeting so many inspiring people since I arrived here. Seventeen year old GetUp pacific delegate Christina Ora addressed the plenary yesterday. What she said was amazing and a wake up call to all of the so called leaders present here.

Enough delay, the clock is ticking, we need a real deal at the end of this thing!!

Got to go, Greenpeace is handing out free coffee to those leaders willing to act, got to go be a part of that! Follow me on twitter @350Australia – or check out GetUp’s twitter @GetUp – thanks!

Emily

‘The clock has ticked down to zero. After two years of negotiations, the time has come to deliver…Copenhagen will only be a success if it delivers significant and immediate action that begins the day the conference ends.’ Opening statement by Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary, UNFCCC

We found passionate, articulate and knowledgeable Pacific Islanders to share their personal stories about the impacts of climate change, but neither they (nor their governments) could afford to send them to the negotiations.

That’s where GetUp members came in – together, thousands of Australians chipped in to get these voices heard. Thanks to you, the delegates are now on the ground in Copenhagen meeting with key politicians and getting their voice heard.

Personal stories impact our decision makers – and hearing from people on the frontline of climate change is powerful motivation.

MEET OUR DELEGATES:

Paul Nalau, 29 , Tanna, Vanuatu

“I’ve been a Chairman of Habitat for Humanity Vanuatu and on the United Nations Youth Advisory Panel for the Pacific. I am coordinator of the National Youth Strategy for Vanuatu.

One priority of this is environmental sustainability, an area that I hope my attendance at Copenhagen will help me develop further through the networks and ideas generated from this meeting so I can take them back to Tanna.
If the Pacific goes under water or gets too hot and Australia runs out of good drinking water, where will we go?

At Copenhagen I hope to make the most impact by talking to government officials and see how we can support them get strong action on climate change.”

Carlos Kusto, 26, Federated States of Micronesia

“I was born and raised on the island of Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and have been heavily involved in the fight against climate change affecting my island.

I work for the Micronesia Conservation Trust, a charity supporting biodiversity conservation and related sustainable development. I am also the Marine Country Coordinator to the World Commission on Protected Areas for the FSM, supporting NGOs and local communities in working to develop solutions to our environmental challenges.

Going to Copenhagen is important as the world needs to see how we (as Pacific Islanders) are affected by and can affect the climate debate in the European region and beyond.”

Christina Ora, 17, Solomon Islands

“I won a competition for the chance to represent my country, the Solomon Islands, on a speaking tour around Canada, where I spoke to 8000 people about how climate change is impacting on the lives and livelihoods of people in my island.

I am proud to be able to talk to people about my country and the real threats that exist from climate change to the culture, customs, traditions and identity of Solomon Islanders.

I believe that young people have an important role in the climate change debate because we are the leaders of tomorrow and will face the heavy impact of climate change throughout our lives.

Now I hope to go to Copenhagen as a recognised leader and spokesperson for my community.”

Luana Bosanquet-Heays, 20, Cook Islands

“I have recently been setting up ‘Pasifika Greens’, a group of Tagata Pasifika (People of the Pacific) dedicated to addressing environmental and social justice issues that affect our Pacific peoples.

I have noticed the lack of information available for Pacific Islanders on climate change in particular, despite the impacts we will face in the not too distant future as a direct result of larger nations not taking climate responsibility.

I hope that I can take this urgent message to the climate talks in Copenhagen.”

Rikana Toroma, 18, Cook Islands

“I am from the beautiful island of Aitutaki in the Cook Islands.

I am very passionate about my island environment, culture and tourism and know these are very important sectors of our community and they go together and must be preserved.

I have learnt about climate change and its impact on my home through programmes organised by the National Environment Service.

I am very vocal about the issue and would like to learn more about climate change at Copenhagen and participate in this very significant event!”