COP15 Blog by Ali

'This is my first trip with young friends of the earth and one of the first actions I've taken part in. There doesn't seem to be any way to ease into this gently. The time to act, as they say on the streets, is now!

The word in the Bella Centre in the halls where decisions are made behind partly close
doors, seems a little different. Their time or so it seems, is maybe to act
next year, or maybe they don't need to act at all, perhaps those that pollute
can buy their way through this climate crisis. There is so much money to be
made after all and why leave the oil in the soil when you can pay someone to
offset for you?

The ideas being upheld by Annex 1 countries within the conference are not aimed to solve
the climate crisis they are aimed to make money out of the crisis.

I've sat in talks in the Bella Centre where the benefits of climate offsetting and REDD are
hailed as the solution, then later listened to indigenous peoples who tell how their own lives are being destroyed by these so called solutions.

But it's not all doom and gloom. In the streets and the Klimaforum peoples conference, there are voices speaking truth, speaking of justice and equity and of grassroots solutions that will ground our societies back to social and ecological reality.

In Vandana Shiva's words 'the time for protest alone is over'. Now is the time for protest combined with constructive action. To To start to create To start to create local communities the way we want. Now is the time to provide within our communities our own food and energy, and to move away from our consumer driven culture towards a creative one.

I think if the climate crisis is to be avoided, it is the people working together that will solve it, not our so called governments.

Viva la revolution!!